Replaying Horizon Zero Dawn does suffer a bit from, for lack of a better term, the BioShock effect: its story is so memorable that you just can't be shocked and amazed by it a second time.

It's still a great story, though. And moreso than BioShock - certainly much moreso than BioShock Infinite - Horizon's gameplay is engaging enough to keep things interesting even inbetween story beats.

I do still have some qualms about how suddenly an enemy can evade your aim, and about how frequently their attacks can interrupt you; kinda hope that Aloy's next adventure gets clearer lock-on/seeking and maybe a "kung fu movie" combat system (enemies waiting their turn to attack).

But knowing what to expect, this time around, helped me focus on what the game does well: building an awe-inspiring world, digging into deeply-intriguing backstory, and keeping tension high with dangerous robots.

Ironically, going into Horizon's sidequests with lowered expectations helped me get more out of them -- not as interesting character moments, but as checkboxes on my completion chart, and excuses to explore more of the richly-detailed world.

It was also helpful to know I should invest in inventory upgrades as soon as possible, to mitigate Horizon's laborious mess of crafting-material management.

But I digress. Horizon Zero Dawn is still a triumph of game-making, and, not like I needed an excuse to re-play it, but this PC re-release is gorgeous.

Better than: Ghost of Tsushima
Not as good as: The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt (agh, still waiting for that new-gen update)
The PC version: has, unfortunately, set my visual and performance expectations for Forbidden West pretty high.

Progress: 100% completion

Yeah -- it was Claptastic Voyage, when Borderlands last took us inside a party member's "mindscape." Surprisingly, Psycho Krieg and the Fantastic Fustercluck makes several of the same mistakes.

Its aesthetically-imaginative level designs look neat, but enemy behaviors and arena layouts are no different from what we've seen before. (I could only think of one truly-new enemy, the rocket-riding psycho, which is a fun idea but not interesting to fight.)

By focusing the story on one character, and not a very compelling one at that, it neglects two of the franchise's typical narrative strengths: wacky tertiary characters and comedic character interactions. (Krieg's "sane" inner-voice straight-manning himself just isn't enough to carry the tale.)

And, though less-so than Bounty of Blood, Fantastic Fustercluck similarly tries a little too hard for some "serious" story beats. Krieg's heartache over Maya is borderline creepy, and his tragic origin story turns out to be a familiar psychotic-break trope.

This DLC also has a shockingly difficult final boss battle, considering how easy the rest of its encounters were. (Though unlike in Claptastic Voyage, we did actually finish this one.) Here's a combat design suggestion: when character options heavily feature "Kill Skills," buffing the player after each kill, you probably shouldn't make a boss fight that has nothing to kill.

Fantastic Fustercluck has a couple of cool ideas, particularly the segments in which you're chasing - and being chased by - a psychedelic train called Locomobius. And, I mean, the core Borderlands shoot-and-loot gameplay still works just fine -- nothing wrong with that.

But it never really capitalizes on its ideas; including Locomobius, which just ends in a boss fight where you shoot at the train a bunch.

Better than: Borderlands 3: Bounty of Blood - A Fistful of Redemption, Borderlands: The Pre-Sequel - Claptastic Voyage
Not as good as: Borderlands 2: Sir Hammerlock vs. the Son of Crawmerax, Borderlands 3: Guns, Love and Tentacles - The Marriage of Wainwright & Hammerlock
Krieg's tragic science-experiment backstory: feels like it might have meant to hint at a broader "origins of the psychos" plot point; I'm not really sure why this DLC dug itself in so deep, there.

Years after trying the demo, my thoughts on Ronin are largely unchanged: it channels the same cool-factors as Gunpoint and Mark of the Ninja, but its attempts to be more tactical than the former suffer from imprecision relative to the latter.

Those messy imprecisions unfortunately run head-first into the game's second enemy type -- a dude with swords who insta-kills you at close-range. The rules of engagement for this enemy are ambiguous at best, so dying again, and again, and again, while trying to figure them out... becomes real tedious real fast.

At least those die-and-retry loops are somewhat small, with mid-level checkpoints (unlike, say, Deadbolt). But that's not enough. I don't feel like the game is giving me the tools to learn and improve; just more chances to guess at a sequence of moves that'll happen to work.

Progress: Killed the old man.

Danger Crew, a turn-based RPG themed around computer programming and tech culture, is a cute idea -- and not much more.

It's neat that an attack called curl steals (GETs) an item from the enemy; and it's fun that NPC dialog lampoons tropes like "everyone has a startup," and "interviews are a nightmare."

But the facade is generally thin, and the game underneath it is fairly rote.

The combat mechanics aren't really special: your HP is "battery charge," you attack with "scripts," and items can buff attributes like offense or defense or accuracy. Nor is the top-down overworld remarkable, just more of the same grid-based navigation that RPGs have done for the past 35 or 40 years.

And that'd be fine if the game's writing was more distinctive, but... too many opportunities for immersive flavor text get squandered (pro tip: computer code doesn't use literal wires):

And mission dialogs just read like an excuse to make you walk the map and do battles (another pro tip: don't put an ongoing meeting "on hold" while waiting for the new guy to finish his office tour):

... granted, poorly-planned meetings are actually kinda realistic.

I like the idea! But the execution isn't deep or thorough enough. Danger Crew feels like nothing more than a stripped-down RPG with some Wired articles pasted on top.

Progress: Level 6, didn't start the meeting yet.

For the most part, The Great Ace Attorney Chronicles - the localized collection of two games, Adventures and Resolve, which I thought would never leave Japan - is exactly what an Ace Attorney veteran expects.

From its outlandish, boisterous characters...

To the protagonist's fish-out-of-water attitude and haphazard trial technique.

Even the awkwardness in its PC port, like nonsense keybindings, and this baffling dependency/codec error:

... is, well, within expectations for Capcom.

Great Ace Attorney may take place in a different era, and a different hemisphere, but friends of Phoenix and Maya will get along with Ryunosuke and Susato just fine.

Like Phoenix's (and Apollo's) stories, this one is both fun and dramatic -- building up an enchanting cast of characters, like the absent-minded Sherl- er, Herlock Sholmes and the panicky Soseki Natsume; while simultaneously uncovering a deep backstory riddled with intrigue and pathos.

The pacing of some cases is a bit "off," especially when the first game ends with major plot questions unanswered, and the second game then flashes back to add more questions on top. And, some earlier cases can feel quite slow -- lots of dialog to click through.

But ultimately, when the final cases bring everything together, Ryunosuke's tale is a thoroughly entertaining and satisfying one.

The gameplay is, well, it does the job. Investigating scenes, and picking apart testimonies, work the same as ever; evidence can be rotated and poked at in 3D, like in Apollo Justice: Ace Attorney, although this game's (era-appropriate) scene investigation tools are less varied.

Great Ace Attorney reuses the multi-witness mechanic from Professor Layton vs. Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney, but - as in its predecessor - this doesn't really change the flow of witness testimony.

And while Great Ace Attorney also adds a "Dance of Deduction" mechanic (logically deducing the scene with Sholmes) as well as a "Jury Summation Examination" mechanic (interviewing jurors to flip their rulings), they are - in practice - exactly like examining evidence and pressing witnesses. At least the Sholmes segments include some over-the-top choreography and finger-snapping.

(The first game also includes some content that's suggestive of a 3DS-specific stereoscopy feature; in this 2021 re-release, the game asks you to cross your eyes while looking at two images.)

So, at its worst, the Great Ace Attorney duology doesn't innovate on its franchise's "visual novel with detective elements" foundation. And can move a bit slowly.

But these characters are enjoyable, and this story is fulfilling -- from its grandest aristocratic scandal to its tiniest pun. This collection is worthy of the name Ace Attorney.

Better than: Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney - Spirit of Justice
Not as good as: Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney - Dual Destinies
Thanks for the translation Capcom, now: how about that Ace Attorney 4-6 remaster?

While Saints Row: The Third Remastered was a pleasant reminder of Volition's madcap sandbox formula, replaying its DLCs was a more sobering trip back in time; the DLC standards of yester-decade were pretty insubstantial.

Genkibowl VII's new activities are fine, but there aren't many of them, and most aren't sufficiently distinct from the core game's side-missions. (Skyblazing, at least, feels pretty fresh.)

Gangstas in Space is a funny, but short, mini-story -- its sense of humor dulled by some frustrating die-and-retry checkpointing.

... and the same goes for The Trouble with Clones, whose humor feels like more of a reach. The Saints Flow super-power mission was neat ten years ago, but now just makes me want to replay Saints Row IV.

At full running lengths of 1-2 hours apiece, these content packs all feel insubstantial and easy to miss. At least they're no longer an additional charge, I guess.

A decade later, Saints Row: The Third Remastered still feels pretty good.

In many ways, it's surprising how ahead of its time the original release was. From its character creator with gender-unlocked voice options and equal-opportunity genital sliders, to its unflinching embrace of anti-hero cynicism and moral neutrality; the Saints may be homicidal monsters but they're likable, and the game's avant-garde material still plays well in today's social climate.

(Arguably, its use of prostitutes in activities and as NPCs could be a little less sexist, i.e. it could use some male whores. But the game is already pretty sex-positive!)

The open world of Steelport also remains a blast to cause trouble in, despite shoddy car handling and uneven aiming controls -- you can still suplex pedestrians, hijack cars by leaping through their windshields, and zap helicopters with a VTOL jet. And those are what's important, after all.

"Taking over" the city is still a ton of fun, even though modern sandbox expectations make Steelport's list of activities feel a little lacking. Between formula re-use - like, Snatch and Escort are pretty damn similar - and an overall low number of optional objectives; plus how hidden and confusing the Assassination and Vehicle Theft diversions are... I mean, I still enjoyed coloring Steelport purple, but its side-content is a far cry from Tsushima's or even Skyrim's.

And there are some opportunities for gameplay polish that, I think, maybe this remaster could have taken -- like the radio's small track list, missions that take too long inbetween checkpoints, the high cost of endgame upgrades (and/or the tedium of accumulating cash), and how mobs of enemies can sometimes grow into an infuriatingly large swarm (especially in the zombie mission).

So, sure, time hasn't left Saints Row: The Third in quite the shape I recall from 2011. But it still holds up pretty damn well, it's still fun and crazy, and the remaster has it looking gorgeous even by modern standards.

Better than: Agents of Mayhem, Red Faction: Guerrilla Re-Mars-tered
Not as good as: Saints Row IV, I just honestly miss running up buildings like a superhero.
I don't care if they drop Shaundi, and Johnny Gat, et al: in the upcoming reboot -- Volition just needs to recapture this sense of zany fun, and fill the new map with hectic, destructive activities.

Progress: 98%, conquered Steelport.

Here's the headline: Piczle Cross Adventure is basically what I "wanted" PictoQuest to be. It's an imperfect, but delightfully satisfying, hybrid of exploration-based adventuring and nonogram puzzle solving.

Piczle Cross Adventure is an open-world RPG, or maybe more accurately a Metroidvania, where progress is gated by items and obstacles; items are acquired, and obstacles overcome, by solving puzzles; and puzzles have level requirements, where you level-up by ... completing more puzzles.

I might argue that the number of puzzles needed to meet those level requirements is pretty steep, limiting the amount of the map open for exploration at a given time. But, hey, I was gonna do all the puzzles anyway.

Nevertheless, framing its puzzles within a creative and colorful world elevates Piczle Cross Adventure beyond most "mere" puzzle games. Exploring the map is way more fulfilling than just following a linear sequence of puzzle prompts.

It also helps that, although its story is silly and stupid, the game has a good sense of humor about itself.

There is definitely room for improvement, both to the "adventure" and to the puzzles -- more flexibility in exploration would be great, as would some clarification of current objectives (like a quest list). And the puzzle interface doesn't do well with click-and-drag over a row or column, and some of the hint-highlighting behavior could be better...

But! Piczle Cross Adventure succeeds where previous puzzle-hybrids have failed: puzzles are well-integrated into its game world, a world that has nuance and charm all its own. It's a puzzle game with a personality, which is no mean feat.

Better than: Murder by Numbers, PictoQuest: The Cursed Grids, Puppy Cross
Not as good as: Pictopix, in "pure puzzle" terms... but this is definitely the best nonogram-hybrid game I've played so far.
That said: I can't wait to see what's next in an iterative follow-up, or for other developers to riff on this formula.

Progress: 100%

Borderlands 3: Bounty of Blood - A Fistful of Redemption commits what might be a cardinal sin, for Borderlands: it tries to tell a serious story.

I can definitely see what it was going for, with its "western but slightly different" aesthetic (bizarrely reminiscent of Red Steel 2), its narrator channeling a "truly gritty" tone of cynicism, and its attention-grabbing hook of (trivial spoiler) introducing you to the story's villain before you find out that she's the villain.

It's got some promising narrative starts -- the problem is that they never lead anywhere interesting. None of the story's characters - not even the villain who you personally meet, nor her primary foil who you help throughout the story - are characterized for more than a second. I still barely understand why Rose was doing what she did, and I never saw any consequential significance in the late-campaign revelation that "the company" who exploited and ruined this planet is Jakobs; like, does this affect our relationship with Wainwright? or the technology available in Jakobs weapons? or the balance of power among other weapons manufacturers? No, it doesn't seem to mean anything.

And it shouldn't be surprising that Bounty of Blood failed to deliver on its initial storytelling promises, because Borderlands has almost never done well with serious content -- including, recently and especially, the ending of Troy and Tyreen's story in Borderlands 3.

The whole game is built around moving fast and being a jerk. That's why irrevent humor fits so well in it, and why serious moments only ever "land" when they're brief and straightforward interruptions to a sequence of hijinks. Like we saw in Tiny Tina's Assault on Dragon Keep. ... but I digress.

If there's anything redeeming in Bounty of Blood, it's that this DLC introduces - or reintroduces - some wacky gameplay twists like a melee-able bomb plant, The Pre-Sequel's bounce pads (now in the form of ... also a plant), and Portal-esque teleporters. But, even these mechanics are used so rarely that they barely impact any of Bounty of Blood's encounters.

And the loading screen art is pretty cool. So, there's that.

Better than: Borderlands 2: How Marcus Saved Mercenary Day
Not as good as: Borderlands 2: Sir Hammerlock vs. the Son of Crawmerax
There was one bright spot of humor in this DLC campaign: the story of "Soapy Steve" is more memorable than anything else I saw in Bounty of Blood.

Progress: Finished the main quests, almost no side-quests.

Guns, Love and Tentacles is something of a love letter to Lovecraftian horror, and the summary of that letter is: wow, Lovecraftian horror means a lot of weirdly different things.

It's got an icy planet in deep space, barren but for tentacle monsters. It's got ancient evils who drop curses that drive people homicidally bonkers. It's got a creeptastic New England-styled town that's always dark, and whose citizens are perpetually terrified of answering the door. It's got an abandoned library built on top of a hidden laboratory concealing eldritch secrets. It's got a detective-slash-demon-hunter who's too amnesiac to remember what he uncovered.

It's got, uh, vaguely Nordic barbarians who battle each other for sport. (Was that ever a Lovecraft thing? Maybe not.)

Anyway, it's got a lot. And in attempting to do all of those things, while following the high-level plot of Sir Hammerlock and Wainwright Jakobs tying their knot, and gradually uncovering the tragic backstory of the villain who passed her curse along to them... it just doesn't get into enough depth with any of them to deliver especially well.

Gaige the Mechromancer (Borderlands 2) gives a great performance as an only-slightly overwhelmed wedding planner, especially when her companion Deathtrap helps you fight demons and cursed chumps. And Mancubus, the absolute creep-show at the venue's front desk, is a genuine delight. Otherwise, though, this DLC chapter's narrative chops don't really stand out.

What Guns, Love and Tentacles does outside its narrative is just fine, on balance with Moxxi's Heist of the Handsome Jackpot before it -- these environments are a little less varied, but there is a real hub level with vehicle traversal, so six of one and et cetera.

It's a fine DLC chapter with some fun trails to follow and monsters to blow up, just not as poignant or cohesive as some of Borderlands's best.

Better than: Borderlands 2: Mr. Torgue's Campaign of Carnage
Not as good as: Borderlands 2: Captain Scarlett and Her Pirate's Booty, Borderlands 3: Moxxi's Heist of the Handsome Jackpot (given my personal bias towards space casino robbery).
"Too many margs" Gaige: is a pretty awesome character. She and Mr. Torgue could do some real damage together.

Progress: Finished the main quests, almost no side-quests.