Zelda: Breath of the Wild’s Weapon Durability — Frustrating by Design
Zelda: Breath of the Wild should have disappointed me. It was 2017, I had pre-ordered the Switch, and I was already composing my “Nintendo phoned it in” hot take in my head.
GTA V’s Three Protagonists Changed What Storytelling Could Do in Games
Over a decade later, no open-world game has copied GTA V’s three-protagonist structure. The reason isn’t that the ideas were bad—they were too expensive to execute well.
Human Fall Flat Turned Clumsy Physics Into a Cultural Hit
Human Fall Flat shouldn’t work. The physics are deliberately broken, the protagonist controls like a drunk ragdoll, and half your playtime is spent watching your character slide off a ladder.
Horizon Forbidden West’s Machines Are the Best Combatants in Open-World Gaming
I’ll admit something that might get me kicked out of certain gaming circles: I spent dozens of hours tracking machine override data in a spreadsheet. Not because I had to, but because Guerrilla Games buried so much complexity.
Palworld Proved That Cute Monsters and Survival Crafting Belong Together
Look, I’m going to be honest with you—when I first saw Palworld’s trailer, my immediate reaction was “Nintendo’s lawyers are going to have a field day.” And they might still.
Red Dead Redemption 2’s World Feels Alive Because It Runs on Systems
There’s a moment in Red Dead Redemption 2 that stuck with me long after I put down the controller. I was standing on a porch in Valentine, just watching. And the game was happening.