I got a few:

• Undertale is fine. It’s a neat play on ludonarrative ideas and a smart combat system but the characters all suck and I can feel the game judging me the whole time. It’s also just not that funny save for a few small moments. I also think it’s legacy is the worst thing about it because now we have a million small indie RPGs that all try the same thing.

• Witcher 3 is a complete and utter bore. I could literally never take Geralt seriously because he always sounds like he just ate gravel, so anytime he opened his mouth I laughed. Combine that with the world’s most boring combat (I did my entire playthrough by spamming the shield spell and light attacks) and a gameplay loop consisting of following yellow dots on map and I just completely fail to see how anyone thinks this is a masterpiece.

• Spec Ops the Line is what The Last of Us 2 wishes it could be. TLOU 2’s biggest issue is that it tries to tell a very serious story about the dangers of revenge and how violence isn’t something that should be sought after but then makes violence the most engaging and fun thing in the entire game (NakeyJakey’s video on TLOU 2 basically sums up my feeling about the game). Contrast that with Spec Ops, which seeks to convey a very similar message about how it’s kinda fucked up we glorify war crimes. So what does it do? It makes the combat as boring and unglamorous as possible. It forces the player into legitimately questioning their actions in ways that make them think differently about the medium. I could honestly write an entire essay about this but I’ll sum it up by saying that I think anyone who engages in video game criticism and analysis needs to play Spec Ops the Line.

That’s all I’ve got for now, I’ll update when I have a bit more time.