I honestly think this is a bit of a salty rating. This is a game I had beat a few years back, but with lots of guides including boss weaknesses, strats to beat them, and also locations of all the powerups in the various levels. This time around, I did it relatively guideless, besides at one point getting frustrated with an apparent boss that had no weaknesses and it's this notion that would largely play into this relatively low score for what most would probably consider a classic game. Megaman X offers classic Megaman action - solid run and gun platforming with a litany of powerups and different blasters to collect along the way. The art and music are, of course, classic and the combat and platforming itself feels relatively fluid as a classic SNES 60FPS game. The levels, for the most part, are very fair. Most enemies can be taken out with a charged up blaster shot. And to be fair, after acquiring the upgrade from your dying friend, it turns every blaster into some sort of mega blaster with a special ability of which I didn't even see the tip of the iceberg. That withstanding, where this game lost me a bit were the boss fights themselves and a few sections of ridiculously frustrating platforming. Megaman has a classic boss system where killing one will give you a weapon that will make another boss much easier. This is ok in theory, but I'm convinced you have to give the player at least a clue as to which weapon is effective against who. Or at least make it sense it terms of what would happen in the animal kingdom (the bosses are all animals) or have the elemental effect lend a clue. Perhaps there is some sort of key to the mystery, but when my ice gun was innefective against a fire boss, I stropped trying to figure it out. Some of the boss mechanics seem fun and fair and some are seem just stupid. The chameleon boss, for example, is horrendously tough until get the special weapon to kill him and trap him in a loop which makes him the easiest boss. The problem is, the loop to get him in isn't intuitive at all, it's just kinda random gameplay. Overall I the bosses are fine and these weird behavior patterns are synonymous with the series so I could let it slide. The other fundamental design choice that just seemed ridiculous was how enemies spawn. If an enemy disappears for a single frame off screen, they immediately respawn. This is a system similar to Mario and other platformers but at least in those there's some grace frames for the game to register the enemies still being dead. This leads to a part near the end of a game where Megamans climbing and sliding mechanic causes enemies to continuously respawn and appear above the character, creating this hellatious loop where timing it extremely luckily or damage boosting seemed to be the only way out. Now, there is some satisfaction and a real feeling of triumph of memorizing the patterns of a tough boss and overcoming it. This is especially true for the final boss, who takes on three unique, very tough forms and can kill you in two shots thorughout the three phases. This meant doing the first two phases flawlessly and then praying for RNG on the third, which at sometimes did seem unfairly hard. I do concede that spending time on each of the levels and looking for health upgrades would probably make a massive difference, but I just didn't really have the will to search these levels without a guide. I know, deep in my heart, that this is a good game but it's my challenge and my ratings and it just pissed me off. I'll cool down a bit and likely try another entry in the X series - this time with aboslutely zero consultation to see how deep the frustration can get.

Continuing the trend from late 2020, the second entry in 2021's list is an awesome 2D Metroidvania in a beautiful 8 bit pixel art world. The character controls Zoe, who mysteriously awakes in the town of Alwa as their savior of sorts and is tasked with casting out the evil that's plaguing the town. The setting and especially the soundtrack to this game are fantastic and completely suit it's purposes, but the real memorable feature of this game are the magic mechanics that once unlocked greatly improve the character's movement and puzzle solving potential, offerring many different solutions to a particular room or puzzle. There are only three magic spells that the character unlocks: the green block, the water bubble, and the lightning rod. The latter is used for opening special doors and as a weapon for late bosses, while the two former are the one's which allow the player to move around the world in an intriguing way while also allowing the possibilty for more frame perfect tricks which can abuse these items and lead to infinite flight, for example. This is allowed because of the fluidity the phyiscs of this game offers, running in what appears to be 60 frames and being very responsive to the thumbstick and button inputs. Progression through the game can be a tad frustrating at times, as it has a Hollow Knight like element of not exactly telling the player where to go and not offerring much direction in terms of where they can or should go next. I suppose this is a staple of the genre, though, and can be accepted. Difficulty wise, Alwa's Awakening doesn't offer a significant challenge, but there is a rather sharp difficutly spike in the last area which requires the player to use all the magic abilities she's acquired leading to some creative and great platforming sections en route to the final boss. Bosses themselves are also pretty simple as they are stuck to set patterns which can be quickly memorized and manipulated. Overall a charming, quick, unique and pretty damn fun Metroidvania which has be falling deeper in love with the genre the more I explore it

Another year, and another very very slow start to the challenge. After feeling inspired by my late surge in 2021, I thought this was the year where I'd get out to a very hot start and be able to cruise through to 52 at a relaxed albeit consistent pace. Well, I was wrong...and it's all because of the Witch Queen. Now normally I wouldn't allow a DLC to be a stand alone entry - but this is the exception to the rule. When Destiny 2 first came out many years ago, I was underwhelmed. The original Destiny was and is still one of my favorite games of all time, but the second one just did not live up to expectations at launch, mainly due to lack of content. The incredible engine which allows for, in my opinion, the best feeling first person gun mechanics was there, but everything else was seemingly missing. Fast forward three or four years and I notice a deal in the Steam shop which is essentially all the content that I missed bundled up into one nice DLC and I bought it. I'll never look back. The content went from lacking to too much (in a good way) and the game's systems and mechanics have dwelved into what appears to be a true FPS MMORPG. This was only reinforced and expanded with the introduction of the Witch Queen - a stand alone game in it's own right and by far the greatest DLC I have ever played. This is the definitive Destiny campaign and story as it explores the origins of the universe and the history events from the Hive and more specifically Queen Savathun's perspective. In what might be the greatest first person shooting campaign I've ever played, which is saying alot considering this is a DLC, the Witch Queen has it all. An incredible story, beautiful environments, loadout optimization, smooth gun mechanics, unique synnergies - the list goes on and on. After experiencing this incredible campaign, we get into the real meat and bones of Destiny - the end game. Where the game failed on launch in this department, it totally delivered with the Witch Queen. The grind to the power cap will test the meddle of any MMORPG gamer, and the loot and cosmetics that come with it are both aesthetically incredible and offer such a wide variety of gameplay and build styles. I've been grinding this game non stop and still feel like I'm at the tip of the iceberg. Feeling a bit guilty about the lack of progress on this years challenge, and now that I've grinded to the power cap on almost all three of my Destiny guardians, I will be taking a slight step back to explore and make some progress on some other games. But goddamn - this has been a helluva gaming experience and it is no joke when I say Destiny 2 is again challenging for the number one spot for my favorite game of all time.

After what likely will be the highest reviewed game of the year, comes what could potentially be the lowest. I did, however, give Debtor a few points that it probably didn't deserve. Debtor takes the form of a 2D platformer and can be compared to low effort, room by room completions type of game such as Super Meat Boy, but the quality of this is more like Cat Milk. The very short and easy levels had the player getting (bags of money?) from various locations around the level which upon completion would open an exit. The primary, and pretty much only, 'unique' mechanic to acquire these piles of money was pushing blocks around the levels to create platforms. That's it. All the enemies were quite boring in design and all killed you in one touch. Nothing really made sense ranging from the actual gameplay itself, to the art style, to the story mechanics. I gave it a few points because it was short, easy and a platformer. It did well for my currently very behind 2022 challenge but not much more than that.

Ok, not bad - not bad at all. Venture Kid feels like a kid friendly Mega Man game which is much shorter and much easier than it's inspirer. It also is lacking Mega Man's infamous level selection mechanic which can be unduly frustrating if you are unaware of boss weaknesses. The lack of this makes for a relatively simple and pleasureful experience. The game has you controlling Venture Kid through various stages, and much like Mega Man the upgrade you get from defeating a boss will grant you new abilities and will be useful in the stages to come. The platforming is smoothe, intuitive, and the synnergies with the abilities you pick up make for a pleasureful experience. The artwork is beautiful, MM inspired pixel art and the story isn't much to write home about but it served it's purpose. As an experienced platformer, the game was probably a little easier than it could have been but it made for a quick and enjoyable addition to this list.

Ah - yet another roguelite (or rogue-like?). I've had my eye on Mana Spark for a while now, the art style and playstyle was looking right up my alley, and during this mini Switch binge that I've been on it felt like the perfect time to give it a whirl. It did not disappoint. Now, this is a very small game and it would be unfair to compare it to the likes of the titans of the genre such as Binding of Isaac, Wizard of Legend, Enter the Gungeon etc. And although this twin stick roguelite doesn't quite measure up to the aforementioned royalty, it's a damn good game that was pretty much exactly what I expected. For what it is, the story isn't actually all that bad. There are a few cutscenes explaining that the inhabitants of an encampment had disappeared, or been taken rather, suddenly one night and it is up to the job of our protagonist to find out why and to get them back. The character then starts diving into the procedurally generated levels, unlocking characters which in turn provide passive and active buffs that the character can build around when starting future runs. The gameplay itself is simple, but I love it, and is highly reminiscent of Titan Souls - an absolute classic. Different characters probably do have different playstyles, but once I got used to the single shot bow and learning how to min/max it to perfection, I didn't venture off the starting character until I had beaten the final boss. Much like Titan Souls, there is a dodge mechanic that allows the player to setup perfect arrow shots, and an active item which can be thrown or used in combat rooms to help with encounters. Originally I had thought the protable turret was the meta, but once I learned about the freeze bomb I never looked back. Speaking of which, one criticism of said ice bomb is that it did make some encounters pretty trivial, especially boss fights as they would get frozen for the same time and length as regular enemies. The game's first levels and first boss start off on the easy side, but this game does ramp up it's difficulty exponentially leading up to a solidly difficult final encounter. The aforementioned pixel art and game design is right up my alley and beautiful, and although I didn't experience much of the music, from what I remember it did it's part as well. This was a solid, not too difficult yet rewarding challenge and a great mini roguelike (or lite) experience.

Every once in a while, a game comes around that reinstills your faith in video games and acts as a definitive separator from other mindless activities, such as mindlessly binging Netflix shows. It Takes Two is that game. From eccentric founder Josef Fares comes an absolute masterpiece of a video game. This is the first in two entries from this director which are intenteded to be played through as a co op experience and I did so with one of my best and oldest friends. The story was a heartwarming tale of a girl trying to cope with and rectify her parents' marital problems, which led to each player controlling a parent in a consortium of classic indie stsyle gameplay. At heart, this is a 3D platformer which has the two players working together to solve puzles and platform thorugh the various sections. Although simple by nature, the interactions with one another and the environment are something to behold it what has to be one of the most satisfying gameplay loops of all time. Each biome introduces the players to new mechanics and abilities which all seem to be just...perfect. This ranges from classic 3D platforming, to 2D side scrollling, to even some top down isometric Gauntlet Legends type gameplay. This is an amalgation of all the classic past and current indie playstyles and it's just incredible. There are some versus elements to the game, as occasionally there will be Mario Party like challenges that put the two co op heroes against one another, but they're done in a tasteful and simple way which I believe isn't too rage inducing or cause for concern when considering the harmonious nature of the playstyle. The graphics, for an indie game and what it sets out to do, seem to work out well with only the cut scenes, perhaps, needing a bit of work to really engulf you in it's incredible atmosphere. This game was an absolute delight and proof, yet again, that a small team with a creative director can create a modern day masterpiece. This team, allegedly, has a new game in the works which will blow It Takes Two out of the water. On a surface level this seems impossible, but at this point I will not doubt Josef Fares and will buy whatever he puts out without a seconds hesitation.

We probably should have played A Way Out before It Takes Two. Don't get me wrong, this is a great game and an incredible co op experience - something that this team clearly is trying specialize in. And indeed they do. A Way Out is much more cinematic than It Takes Two, as it takes the form a 3rd person narrative game where two inmates, controlled by the two respective co op players, are working together to break out of prison. Unlike It Takes Two, A Way Out is focused more on the storylines and prompts rather than platforming and more conventional puzzle solving. The game does pick up, and allows a bit more freedom, however, once the players escape the prison and engage in a more open world with the goal of revenge on the mind for both characters. As the game develops it adds more mechanics than simply finding and interacting with prompts, ranging from GTA like car racing to a full on Gears of War like 3rd party shooter. The graphics aren't necesarily AAA, but they are alright and clearly a bigger graphical budget was instilled here than it's spiritual sequel, It Takes Two. A very unique, and admittedly somewhat offputting, element of the game is when we find out one of the characters is a undercover cop, with the result of pitting the co op party against each other and ultimately having to square off against the person you've been collaborating with this entire time. This is unique, but it comes at a bit of a price in terms of end game enjoyment - ultimately there will be one teammate with a bit of a better experience than the other. Regardless, I wouldn't hesitate to recommend this narrative driven game as a couch co op or online co op experience with a good buddy. I played this one with the same guy I played It Takes Two with, and seriously enjoyed my time with both.

There's throwbacks, and then there's a double throwback. Elastomania is honestly one of the earliest games that I really have some sort of memory of. Throughout the years, for example during Philosophy class at McGill, I've given it another playthrough or two and it's remarkably stood the test of time. Elastomania is a physics based biking game that tasks the player with collecting apples in a given level before making contact with the exit symbol, a flower. Although a bit strange in concept, this game shines in it's physics engine that gives the player remarkable control of the bike while using nothing but the arrow keys along with spacebar to change direction. Barreling through the games 54 levels was a trip down memory and nostalgia lane, with a fairly steep difficulty curve as the player gets better and more comfortable in the Elastomania universe. Although this playthrough was mainly geared towards completion, due to how the bike physics works in the games sandbox it provides the player with infinite ways to collect apples in beating levels and allows for some absolutely insane speedrun strats as seen on YouTube. While downloading this game I noticed a sequel had been released. I'm not sure if it's old or even made from the same developers, but I'll likely have it on this list due to name recognition alone.

Speaking of throwbacks...we get this absolute modern retro classic. Just one look at the initial trailer for this game and 1990 arcade goers and SNES owners alike were overwhelmed with a nostalgic wave of joy. What's truly remarkable about this game is it's almost completely indecipherable from the original. If I was teleported back to 1995, turned on my SNES and started playing this product there would be absolutely zero inclination to believe that it was developed 30 years in the future. But this is a good thing. Shredder's Revenge perfectly recaptures that co op, sidescrolling beat'em up genre that was a pivotal force in this era of gaming. Much like the original, players select any of the iconic characters, each equipped with their own weapons and skillsets, and venture out on a typical TMNT adventure. I just played this with one friend, but the game advertises up to 6 person co op which could be very interesting admittedly seemingly quite chaotic. The combat is simple, yet a quick look in the tutorial shows an insanely deep combat system with dozens of combinations. One thing I would have liked to see is the game actually making the player employ these techniques to get past certain barriers or damage certain bosses as my teammate and I found ourselves breezing through the game with relatively basic and intuitive inputs. I predict, however, that the higher form of combat would be perhaps necessary in higher difficult settings. All the mini bosses, from Krang to BeBop and Rocksteady, made an apperance on our quest to the final showdown with shredder. The game went by a little too quick and a little too easy, but I'm not deducting any points as this might presumably be resolved by switching to the 'gnarly' difficulty setting. Overall an incredibly nostlagic and fun experience proving that core mechanics from the 1990s can easily hold up in 2020.

Disc Room is awesome. This minimalistic game has the mysterious playable character embark on an unknown planet to capture a thief that has performed some sort of unknown heist of precious cargo. Although there is no dialogue in this game, the plot is revealed through comic book-like cutscenes that even upon completion remain a bit mysterious and unknown. Somewhat confusing plot aside, the game's strength lies in it's simplistic gameplay which has the player go through a series of interconnected rooms and dodge the traps within. The traps typically come in the form of, you guessed it, sharp, blade covered discs which take on a variety of forms. In the sense of the interconnected rooms, it plays somewhat like a top down metroidvania but it does allow the player instant teleportation and backtracking to any previously visited room. There are different 'biomes' so to speak with sections of the interconnected maze having specific themes such as pervading darkness, a water and a jungle theme. This game also has a bit of a Cuphead mechanic going on which sees the player unlock abilities throughout their run such as dash, slowing down time, and teleporting but only allowing one of the abilities equipped when attempting a room clear. The clears themselves usually involve the player either collecting various items in the tiny room or surviving for a certain amount of time. Although there were undoutedbly more powerful abilities, I foud myself going with the classic iframe dodge mechanic simply because it made me feel like I was controlling my favorite character from Enter the Gungeon. I'm not sure if I would qualify Disc Room as a 'difficult' game due to the instant respawn and relatively short levels, however it undoutedly requires the player to be precise with their inputs for that short period of time. All in all, the playthrough took about 2-3 hours or so and I'm sure one could pile on a couple more if they were going for a full achievement run. A great little game which I may revisit to learn the speedrun, as it seems like a new and perfect game for that purpose.

Hm. Not entirely sure how to feel about this one. Swaps and Traps is yet another relatively short 2D platformer for the Switch that has the player collect various objects around a one screen room before making their way to an exit. In this sense, it is slightly reminiscient of some previous entries in the Challenge such as Debtor or the even more awful Cat Milk. Admittedly, the actual level design and core platforming gameplay of this one was much better, Swaps and Traps came with a fairly unique twist. Every time a player collected one of those aforementioned objects, in this case a key, a portion of the room would 'swap' with another, distorting the screen and causing chaos. All of a sudden walking to the edge of a swapped section would have the character appear either backwards, sideways, or upside down upon walking into a connecting section somewhere else on the screen. This definitely disoriented even an experienced platformer such as myself and added a seriously heightened level of difficulty, but unfortunately for me this difficulty took the form of annoying moreso than satisfying to beat. One of my most hated aspects of Kaizo Mario levels are when the creator forces you to go left instead of right on any given level, and this represented that notion ten fold. Staring at a section of screen which is upside and down, or on it's vertically oriented, and where pushing left on the joystick moves you right just simply doesn't equate to fun and satisfying platforming. Ironically enough, removing this mechanic and just playing the levels without section swapping would have been much easier, but in this case I also think much more enjoyable. Aside from all this, the art design, music, cut scenes and the pure physics of the platforming were totally fine and definitely a cut above some of the other aforementioned platformers that are designed in the same style. I seem to be somewhat alone on this, as the 60 steam reviews or so all gave rave reviews about this game, comparing it to Super Meat Boy and averaging it a "Highly Positive" review. The game's 60 levels across three worlds did take up some time, and served me well to complete during a long day of travel. Not terrible, not great, just somewhere right in the middle.

Initially I had this game around a 1.5, but after getting thorugh the last boss, I dropped it to a 0.5. This was a godawful experience and after beating all the cheap games I've already bought on Switch will serve as permanent evidence that the price of a game really might determine it's value. V.O.I.D. is a 2D platformer that has the player use one of two characters to make their way through an incoherent level structure with even a more incoherent storyline. The controls are basic - a double jump which often doesn't work and plummets characters to instant death along with a blaster that one or two shots most enemies. There are various world with their own physics such as underwater and ice which are both respectively terrible. I probably would have given this game at least a 2 if it wasn't for the last few levels which were pure misery - the final world being a gauntlet of 12 or so previously played levels in a row along with a few new ones which introduced a springboard mechanic which was pure hell. As a Kaizo player this isn't a 'git gud' situation - it still only took me two play sessions to beat this piece of crap it was just unbelievably unenjoyable while doing so. If you inevitably failed on this pixel perfect, unforgiving and downright unfair springboard level, you had to start the gauntlet again which meant going through the almost equally awful but slightly more forgiving ice level with terrible physics. The final boss seemed almost impossible, but on my second try I just stood in him and spammed my blaster until he somehow and nonsensically died. Also, the dialogue would suddenly switch to Japanese for no apparent reason, indicating this game wasn't even playtested a single time. To me, V.O.I.D. is evidence that absolute crap can make it on Steam, and I'm tempted to buy it on the platform only to leave this scathing review. As soon as the credits rolled I deleted this game from existence and this will be the last thougth I ever put into it.

To be totally honest, and despite my love for top down bullet hell roguelites, my experience with schmups is incredibly limited. Before Lazy Galaxy, I legimitely cannot remember the last one I played. Having said that, I should play more, becase this was a short but enjoyable experience. To be totally fair, after playing the hapless V.O.I.D. any game would have probably seemed really good, but I'm pretty sure this legitimately was. Rebel Story was what seemed to be a fairly traditional schmup as the player controls a robot, flying a ship across 8 levels and defeating a boss at the end of each one. A fairly different mechanic, I would assume, is that at the beginning of each run you select two allies to join you, each with different weapons and supers. As an added feature of this mechanic, choosing different combinations of allies will allow them to have conversations with each other and level them up, however I beat the game before revealing any of their bonuses. This game also served as a roguelite, as each defeated boss would allow the player to pick one of six selectable upgrades. If I had a small bone to pick with this game, is that the meta progression seemed almost too strong, as dying and unlocking new abilities turned the game from seemingly impossibly hard to very easy. My full playthrough was only a few hours, if that, and although this served very well for a now very behind challenge year, this could have used a bit more content. The graphics were indie solid, and the story and the dialogue between the characters seemed serviceable although admittedly I didn't pay much attention to it. Overall, a nice little experience that has inspired me to play more schmups, especially those with roguelite elements.

I'm not 100% certain that this game deserves an 8, but I'm giving it one anyway. Serial Cleaner is a top down steathlike game which puts the player in control of the 'Cleaner', a youngish man whose job is to clean up murder scenes before the cops can investigate and gather the evidence. The gameplay itself was totally serviceable, albeit a bit jank at times. The protagnoist 'cleans' his way through 20 different levels of escalating difficulty, with the objectives of taking and destroying bodies, picking up objects, and vacuuming up a certain percentage of the level's blood. The jankyness came when avoiding the security guards and policeman that would serve as the obstacles in each level as their unpredictable and often sudden movement patterns would result in get scene and having to start all over. However, this game was not too difficulty nor too lengthy and this was perhaps needed to add a little element of difficulty to it. What really sold this game for me though was it's charm - it played sort of like a very dark version of Golf Story. The graphics were not quite pixel but were nice in their own right, and the story was one of a young man doing what he had to do to care for his Mom while keeping her in the dark of his less than righteous form of employment. As the story developed, a main antagonist emerged as the serial killer that the cleaner has been doing most of his jobs for, resulting in a climatic confrontation and the serial cleaner besting his foe. The final cut scene made me think for a second that our hero was either hallucinating or dead, but it turns out that it was as it seemed and the game ended in a happy ending. The former may have made for some interesting writing, but I can never be that upset at a happy ending. I'm not sure what else this developer has done, if anything, but I will be checking for anything this development compnay releases.

The spiritual successor to Super Meat Boy - and ironically much moreso than it's actual sequel Super Meat Boy Forever. Judging by the score given, you can see this is a massive compliment as this is borderline a precision platforming classic. The player takes control of some black, amorphous, foul talking blob who seems to be the only organism alive after the world has come to an end. After his favorite video game gets broken, he (or it) sets out on an adventure to collect the necessary parts to build a new friend. The gameplay plays very similar to Super Meat Boy as the blob ventures across numerous worlds with around 20 short but precise and difficult levels within. The level design is not only intelligent in terms of difficulty, but the art design and the aesthetics of the various worlds are beautiful in the given context. Instead of sticking and sliding on walls ala Meat Boy, The End is Night has various hooks attached to vertical surfaces which the player can jump to and hang on before planning their next move. A few more mechanics involve upwards or sideways momentum when hanging off a ledge or on a hook along with holding down the ZL button on the Switch to smash through breakable blocks below. Another ingenius mechanic are these fetus like items of which one are in each level that are reminiscient of the bandages in Super Meat Boy. Although at first they seem like something simply for a completionist, they actually serve an important purpose. Once the player finishes the first half of the game and jumps into the much more difficult second set of levels. Suddenly, instead of infinite retries, the player has only a certain amount of lives to clear which reset at the start of each remaiming world. The number of lives you have to clear a world will equal the number of fetuses you decided to collect in the first half of the game. This is ingenius as it allows skilled players and speedrunners to collect a marginal amount of fetuses as they'll have confidence in surviving the final worlds with a low amount of lives, while less skilled and players new to the genre can collect all the fetuses - extending the time to beat the game but making for a MUCH easier second half clear. The final challenge sees the player travelling backwards through the final world on a 5 minute counter - a feat difficult the first time but much easier on subsequent attempts. In full disclosure, I have a 95% clear file on this game already but I had no beaten it for the purposes of the The Challenge and it definitely deserved another quick playthrough. Incredibly game deserving of the 3rd highest ranking of 2022 thus far.

A 0? That seems kinda harsh. Truth is, this game could have easily scored in the 6 range if it wasn't for one glaring fault. Gunpowder on the Teeth is a tough as nails, 2D precision platformer set in a Game Boy like war setting. The gameplay can best be described as Broforce meets Super Meat Boy - but it's influence draws much heavier from the former. A randomized soldier, just like Broforce, starts the player off at each level which span across six continents. The objectives are relatively simple, either plant explosives to destroy enemy radar systems and escape in a helicopter or kill a boss with the given mechanics. Although this game is undoutedly difficult, heightened by the black and white color making enemy traps indistinguisable from the environment, there are rapid restart and multiple checkpoints along the way. Although some levels definitely took some time to memorize and get through, none of them proved that challenging for an experienced platformer. So why the 0? Simple, the game on Switch is unbeatable. On one of the final levels, I was stuck on a precise jump for which seemed like forever. I tried everything I could think of including backtracking through the level which was almost impossible with missile reigning down, but I somehow did it to no avail. Eventually, my frustration got the best of me and I did the unthinkable...I looked it up. Having said that, I'm very happy I did. It turns out that the Switch version of the game is bugged at that particular jump and it's actually impossible to clear the barbed wire. This is fixed for the Steam version, but remarkably and inexcusably not on the Switch. Needless to say, if there is something in your game which make it literally unbeatable - your game gets a 0. It's too bad because until then I was enjoying myself, but rules are rules.

Two 0's in a row - what the hell is going on? Much like the previous entry, Cosmonauta is actually not that bad of a game. It is another tough as nails 2D platformer which has the player precision platform their way through 65 relatively short levels of escalating difficulty. I breezed through the first 61 levels with little to no problem before encountering the level number 62. And alas, much like the barbed wire that couldn't be cleared, there is a part near the beginning of the level which is coded incorrectly and which makes beating the level impossible. I say impossible, however, with a caveat. After looking this up on YouTube, there are some 100% playthrough of this game, but when I fast forward to level 62 I see the same thing, an impassable object which can only be defeated with either a mechanical or visual glitch. One playthrough had the player glitch to the next section at random while another passed the object without dying by glitching through the death block below the supposed safe passage. This perhaps suggests that it is possible and simply coded incorrectly, but the minute I saw that I knew that I was done with the game and it was getting a 0. Just like GOTTA, any game which I grind through and get to the end only to be halted by a game breaking bug is going to be considered beaten for the purposes of the list along with given a harsh review. I'm just not sure how these make it to Switch and Steam stores without a very simple playtest which would reveal these game breaking flaws.

A hilarious, random, challenging, physics based 3D puzzle platformer. Human Fall Flat is one of those games you've heard of, and kinda know what it is, but really don't until you emerse yourself into it. The game starts by dropping our polygonal faceless character into a strange, polygonal world which all looks straight out of a final Unity project at a gaming design institution. Although this doesn't necessarily seem like a recipe that would predict success, it just works. The gameplay is relatively simple as you control your awkward and bumbling character and attempt to navigate him (or her or it) through a series of worlds where progression is marked by the game saving on the bottom right of the screen. This is important as it's often difficult to tell if you're progressing through the world or just wasting your time doing something completely unintended. The real hook mechanic of this game is the control of the actual character, very awkward and at times infuriating but hopeless addicting. The controller truly serves as the characters vessel, with each joystick representing an arm accompagnied with a jump and grab button. And that's it. However, the very free physics engine of this game allows the player to interact with the world around them in infinite ways. There would be times where I'd end up backtracking through a world because I had manipulated the player's physics for unintend progression, but unintend progression and mechanics is really what this game seems to be about. There are definitely optimal ways to progress through the game, and a speedrun would be fascinating, but there seem to be endless solutions in terms of each encounter. This is a game I started with my now challenge famous co op cohort, but ended up finishing solo. This is an incredibly fun and hilarious game to play with a friend or loved one that gave me similar vibes to the almighty It Takes Two. It is best, however, served as a couch co op and I did take .5 off the final score because playing online gave the non host awful latency. The game was playable like this, but only barely and my enjoyment of the actual gameplay was noticeably increased when I took it to an offline solo playthrough. Finally, the somewhat haunting environment, music, narration and overall feel of this game solidified it as an unquestionably solid gaming experience. There are many more levels that have been added on to the core game and I will look to beat those as well in an offline, couch co op fashion.

Perhaps another first person shooter which unfairly falls victim to the inevitable comparison to Destiny 2. To provide some context, Halo is one of my first loves as a franchise. Growing up in University through both Halo 2 and 3 releases, these are games that I would endlessly grind the arena based multiplayer before these kinds of games fell victim to the bane of competitive shooters - skill based matchmaking. Although I've never truly fallen in love with Halo campaigns, I certainly recall the earlier campaigns being much more interesting and engaging than this one. This is now a 7 year old game being played on a last generation console, but this can also be said to the Gears franchise which is consistently achieving high scores throughout this challenge. The game just feels a bit soulless. In terms of the gameplay itself, it moves and feels decent for an old shooter, but the movement itself feels lacking, the environments feel repetitive and boring, and the ammo economy is downright awful. It focuses the player to be switching weapons constantly throughout and encounter, never really getting a feel for the dozens of weapons that are provided throughout this campaign. I feel like I did some disservice to the storyline and the environment itself, but part of the onus is on the game itself to draw the player in enough to care. When the game ended, I really had no idea what was happening besides we saved an old, armless woman and somebody on one of the two squads you rotate between is in love with Cortana which may or may not be an AI. Overall, admittedly perhaps an unfair review but my review nonetheless.

Well, this was an interesting one. The game starts like some kind of 90s, sophomoric MTV show having us go inside a cartoon character's body. Once inside, the game structures itself as a 2D platformer. Each 'world' is represented by a piece of human anatomy and each body part has six to seven levels respectively. The object of each level is to get to the exit door, with optional pickups on the way that don't seem to do much other than add to completion progress. The game mechanics are simplistic, but undeniably interesting. The cellular inspired character has a 'gun' of sorts with inifinite ammo which is used to create bridges by connecting shots together. This creates a very unique sandbox environment with open ended physics which allow levels to be solved in, presumably, a variety of ways. This puzzle platformer does not present much difficulty in terms of reaching the credits, but beating the game to one hundred percent completion would presumably present a significant challenge. The eerie art style and score only help this otherwise very minimalistic and simple game reach a rather impressive 7 score.

Another Gears of War game, and another fantastic experience reflected by it's fantastic score. Gears 3 keeps pretty much the exact same successful gameplay formula which gets increasingly better through the series as the hardware and technology improves. The unique, GoW third person combat style is ever present along with the dedicated pool of weapons that the developers have decided to keep pretty much the same at least up until this iteration. The player, once again, controls alpha male protagonist Marcus as he fights through the grubs with the usual band of brothers. Beyond the addicting gameplay loop, the brotherhood amongst these COGs is one of the main emotional hooks of the game. Speaking of emotional, Dom sacrificing himself to save the rest of the squad and reunite with Maria is one of the saddest, most gripping moments in the history of gaming. A wave of legimitate sadness comes over the player when this scene plays out, to the haunting background music of Mad World from Donnie Darko. This moment is almost eclipsed by the sacrifice of Marcus' Dad in an attempt to wipe out the lambent - there is something just heart wrenching about spending the entire series in search of Marcus' father, only to meet him for a couple of hours before his untimely death. The final moments of the series has us killing the hive queen and then wiping out every being affected by lambent which presumably ends the war and the series. Or does it? Gears of War 4 and then 5 are all but next up on the challenge and I can't wait to see how this story develops, and how the hell the grubs survived the Dad's sacrifice.

Undeniably on a Gears of War bender, the next game in the series came soon after the third. However, although this was next in a development sense this story took place years before the first game took place. The player gains control of a fireteam consisting of now fan favorite characters Baird ad Cole along with two other COGs and plays through this campaign through each of their perspectives, respectively. The game takes place in a series of flashbacks as the squad explains their decision to set off a light mass bomb while under trial for their superior Loomis. Initially I had this game as an 8.5 as it's not really attempting to be a full Gears game, but after consideration I was even tempted to move this to a 9.5 based on how damn good it is. Differring from a traditional Gears campaign, the chapters themselves are broken into a series of combat scenarios with a point system and all. What this means is the player is given Gears at it's core - the unique 3rd person gunplay mechanics involving ducking for cover, rolling, spriting to fire, switching weapons and throwing grenades. I found myselff a bit bogged down with the lengthy vehicle sections in the previous games, which I understand to be used as a filler and a way to switch things up but mostly consisted of aiming a turret and firing. Another notable improvement was the combat itself, replacing the clunky directional pad weapon selection system and moving it to a more traditional one. This allowed swapping weapons with the touch of a button and moving grenade throwing to a trigger which made for a much smoother and more dynamic gameplay. The story itself wasn't as gripping and the emotional roller coasters that some of the previous entries were, but was perfectly serviceable for what this game was supposed to be. After playing the majority of the game through a series of flashbacks, the locusts infiltrated the pseudo courtroom and the same squad had to fight them off and defend the city in the game's present day. Even cooler was that after beating Judgment, a second campaign called Aftermath was unlocked. This jumped forward to Gears of War 3 and depicted what happened with Baird and Cole when they split from Marcus and the rest of the squad to garner reinforcements for the final attack on the queen. To play with the timelines like this really helps with world immersion and a really impressive thing to do, especially consider the age of the game at this point. One final note is that, along with the regular arsenal, this game introduced multiple new guns, especially on the long range side, which all seemed powerful and very fun to use. What can I say, another top tier Gears game and I am beyond excited to start the more official fourth entry into the series.