Pokeweek has come and gone, and it has left with us a buttload of reviews about the little pocket critters. If you hate Pokemon and stepped away from the blog for this week, then welcome back! I'm pretty much Pokemoned out, so you don't need to worry about that for a while.

I blew through a whopping 15 reviews this week, pushing the total up to 92. Which means we are dangerously close to 100, people! What will the 100th review be? Who knows? That's a lot of reviews for only having done this for a month and a half!

I'm going to do something different this week. It was originally going to be RPG Week, but I think I've changed my mind. I'm going to be doing a mix of two things: Requests (specifically Saints Row the Third, Super Mario Bros 2, and some others) and what I like to call Nathan's Favorite Games Ever. From this week's splash image you can probably guess what I consider to be the single greatest game ever made, but there are plenty more where it came from (including that long-owed Nier review).

Due to the fact that these are my favorites, the reviews will probably be stupid long, which means I'll commit to only one a day this week as my minimum. I probably won't get to all my favorite games, but I'll be sure and get the key ones. Who knows, you might learn something about what games I like.

Also, I've already done some games I'd consider "favorites ever" (Persona 4, Lords of the Realm 2, and Silent Hill 3 comes to mind), so they obviously won't be re-reviewed or an such nonsense. I think their reviews speak for themselves, so we'll leave them there.

Anyway, here is this week's gym-badge filled, pokeball caught roundup.

Pokemon Blue/Red - 3 / 5 Stars

Pokemon Yellow - 4 / 5 Stars

Pokemon Gold/Silver - 5 / 5 Stars

Pokemon Crystal - 5 / 5 Stars

Pokemon Pinball - 3 / 5 Stars

Pokemon Ruby/Sapphire/Emerald - 3 / 5 Stars

Pokemon FireRed/LeafGreen - 4 / 5 Stars

Pokemon Diamond/Pearl/Platinum - 3 / 5 Stars

Pokemon Trading Card Game - 2 / 5 Stars

Pokemon HeartGold/SoulSilver - 5 / 5 Stars

Hey You, Pikachu! - 1 / 5 Stars

Pokemon Dash - 0 / 5 Stars

Pokemon Black/White - 5 / 5 Stars

Pokemon Puzzle League - 3 / 5 Stars

Pokemon Snap - 4 / 5 Stars

Thanks for reading!

Welcome back, dear reader, and hopefully you survived the horror that was "horror week." We got 10 creepy games reviewed, bumping our game total up to 77 overall. Of course I still have more to review, but we'll see if they pop up during later events.

I'm enjoying sticking to a theme every week, and in celebration to the announcement of the direct sequels to Pokemon Black/White coming out on the DS later this year, I'm going to declare this Pokemon week! I'm going to review everyPokemon generation, and even a few of the odd-balls (such as Crystal or Platinum). But that's not all! I'm also planning on doing all the spin-off games I've played (Pokemon Pinball, anyone?) which should provide some quality content. And before you ask: yes, I've played Hey You, Pikachu! So just keep that in mind.

If by some miracle I run out of Pokemon games before the year ends, I have a few more up my sleeve. Mario 2 (NES) has been in the backburner of requests, as well as Saints Row the Third (which I played religiously this last week), so those might pop up.

RPG week after Pokemon week? Maybe. Mass Effect 3 comes out soon, and that's technically an RPG. We'll see.

Here are these weeks' games, with scores!

Alan Wake - 3 / 5 Stars

Saw - 2 / 5 Stars

Clock Tower: The First Fear - 4 / 5 Stars

Dead Space 2 - 5 / 5 Stars

Plants vs Zombies - 5 / 5 Stars

Silent Hill 2 - 5 / 5 Stars

Silent Hill 3 - 5 / 5 Stars

Silent Hill Homecoming - 2 / 5 Stars

Condemned: Criminal Origins - 3 / 5 Stars

The Darkness II - 3 / 5 Stars

Expect some pocket monster mayhem this week! See you there!

It's time for another week in review! This last week I burned through 10 terrible games, shoving the total up to 67. I didn't get through all my terrible games, though (I still have 9 up for grabs on the Xbox 360 alone) but I think I covered most of them. I have enough left for another terrible games week should I feel so inclined, but for now it's back to business as usual.

And business as usual is that this week will (probably) be Horror Games Week! Yes, I'm going to burn through all the horror (not horrible) games I can think of, including every Silent Hill game (except Origins, which I never played), the Saw game, Clock Tower, The Suffering, and more. I love horror games, so I have plenty to choose from, including ones that are just sort of horror (Left 4 Dead, Dead Island) but still could technically count.

I'm currently playing Saint's Row The Third pretty seriously on the modern gaming side, and I'm deciding what game I want to play through on the retro side. I'm considering doing yet another Super Mario RPG playthrough, but it's also been a very long time since I've beaten Final Fantasy II/IV, so maybe that will be worth some time. I also need to finish Final Fantasy XIII, where on the Xbox I got to the exact same spot I gave up on the PS3 version and then gave up again. I'm going to really try to push forward, though. It's starting to turn into a game, finally.

Anyway, here's this week's horrible games with their respective reviews.

Fable III - 1 / 5 Stars

CastleQuest - 1 / 5 Stars

Too Human - 1 / 5 Stars

Bad Dudes - 1 / 5 Stars

Crackdown 2 - 1 / 5 Stars

TMNT: Turtles in Time Reshelled - 0 / 5 Stars

Comic Jumper: The Adventures of Captain Smiley - 2 / 5 Stars

Dead Space Ignition - 0 / 5 Stars

Ninety-Nine Nights - 1 / 5 Stars

Uncharted: Drake's Fortune - 2 / 5 Stars

That's it from me this week! Have a killer week!

It's been a slow week, and for that I apologize to my reader. I finished off the Kinect review-a-thon with Dance Central 2, and then changed it to "Dark" week, where I'd only review games with "Dark" somewhere in their title. I didn't get to the Dark Forces games, but maybe soon.

This week, to celebrate me playing Duke Nukem Forever for an (upcoming) review, I bring you "Terrible Games Week!" I'm going to dig through all the crap I've played over the years (of which there is a decent amount, but I also am smart and tend to avoid garbage games) and review as much trash as I can pull up. We started it off with Matt Hazard, which is pretty awful but not particularly horrendous. I guess. But I don't want to play it again. Ever.

Anyway, I reviewed 9 games, bumping the total to 57. I'll have you know, I attended a writers conference Thursday through Saturday and it would take up my entire day, but despite this I still both wrote for my novel (at least 600 words a day) and put up a review. So I'm dedicated or something. I'm certain all four of my readers appreciate that. :P

There will be more reviews next week. For now, here is this week's batch.

Dance Central 2 - 5 / 5 Stars

Darksiders - 4 / 5 Stars

The Darkness - 4 / 5 Stars

Dark Sector - 3 / 5 Stars

Alone in the Dark - 1 / 5 Stars

Warcraft II: Tides of Darkness (Bnet Edition) - 4 / 5 Stars

Dawn of War: Dark Crusade - 5 / 5 Stars

Perfect Dark - 3 / 5 Stars

Eat Lead: The Return of Matt Hazard - 2 / 5 Stars

Thank you for reading, and I'll see you all this upcoming week for more review madness.

Welcome back to week in review! It was a double dose of trends this week: I reviewed both every Rock Band game as well as every Kinect game I own except one (Dance Central 2; expect that shortly), meaning retro games got put into the backburner. Fear not, for I have more magical old-school for you reviews coming up soon. Maybe I'll even do a full week of them sometime! Who knows.

So I tackled 15 games this week, throwing the total up to 48. Not too bad. Considering I probably have hundreds to go, I suppose I should pick up the pace. But hey, this isn't that bad considering I'm currently also writing a novella, editing a novel, going to work, and doing an internship. So yeah, busy busy.

My thoughts for this week: comparing review scores. Here's something I want to point out with my reviews: while the star scores are helpful, they aren't the "end all" for these games. I also rate games based both on the experience, what system they are on, and generally if I feel they are worth looking into. For example, I gave Kinect Sports a four out of five, but also gave Persona 3: FES a four out of five. Do I think these are the same quality of games, since I gave them the same star rating? No way (Persona 3: FES is better), but given my experiences with these games, I'd say both were worth purchasing if you have the systems for them. I figure out scores when I finish writing out my thoughts; I rarely go into reviews with pre-conceived stars decided. So if, in my mind, the text I wrote indicates this is a four out of five star game...I give it to it. I also judge games differently based on what they are and what they are trying to do. Kinect Sports wanted to create a fun Kinect experience that worked, and for the most part it pulled it off. Persona 3: FES wanted to create a fusion of dating, pokemon, and JRPG grinding and for the most part, it pulled it off. One could argue Persona 3 is being judged on a more severe scale than Kinect Sports, but it's more of just a different scale. So keep that in mind if you are just looking over the stars; the text is all there for a reason.

That being said, here's this week's reviews.

Rock Band 2 - 5 / 5 Stars

Lego Rock Band - 2 / 5 Stars

The Beatles: Rock Band - 5 / 5 Stars

Green Day: Rock Band - 4 / 5 Stars

Rock Band 3 - 5 / 5 Stars

Terminator Salvation - 1 / 5 Stars

Ninja Blade - 2 / 5 Stars

Warhammer 40k: Kill Team - 3 / 5 Stars

Kinect Adventures - 2 / 5 Stars

The Gunstringer - 4 / 5 Stars

Dance Central - 4 / 5 Stars

Child of Eden - 3 / 5 Stars

YourShape: Fitness Evolved - 3 / 5 Stars

Kinect Sports - 4 / 5 Stars

Kinect Sports: Season 2 - 2 / 5 Stars

See you all next week!

Greetings blog readers, and welcome to the week in review for 1/22/2012. This week saw a boatload of reviews, 12 in fact, pushing the grand total thus far to 33 games. I reviewed a bunch of old PC games this week, particularly Sierra-On-Line games, but I'm not finished with those just yet! I have a bunch more in the pipeline, considering those were what I mostly grew up with, so prepare yourselves for more reviews of old PC games you played and then forgot existed.

I thought I'd also take a brief moment to explain how I review games, and specifically why I only give whole-star ratings. When I sit down to write a review, I have such a massively stupid amount of choices (from all the games I've played) I usually only write ones that I immediately can think of something to say about. I write them all in one sitting, with no planning in advance whatsoever, and I only go back and edit if I made specific errors or mistakes. Basically you are getting me saying what I can think of off the cuff, in one quick breath, and without me redacting anything I've said. I want these to be as completely honest as possible, and keep in mind they are just my opinion (though I do balance the score a little based on game quality, even if I didn't enjoy it, but that's for another post) so if you love a game I hate, I'm totally cool with that (or vice versa).

I give full star ratings rather than half ratings (Giant Bomb, where I am also posting these reviews, allows half-star ratings) because I feel limiting myself makes me both think more about how many stars I give a game, and gets rid of an easy out. In truth, the star rating is there as an afterthought; what I really want you to do is read the words of the review, figure out if you like what I'm saying, and make a judgement from that. There are a lot of games that I think are decent (Legend of Dragoon from this week comes to mind) but I really can't justify giving a high star rating. Hopefully I explain this well in my review (though I am considering putting the star rating just under the last part of "The Short" in reviews, for the especially lazy).

Well, that's it from me. I'm really enjoying this as both a writing exercise and a trip down memory lane, and I really hope you are enjoying reading them. My intentions are that, once we start getting more games on here, you might discover some games you haven't played yet that you'd like to try, or games you forgot about that you can dig back up again. The possibilities are endless!

It is also worth noting most next-gen games were played on Xbox 360 unless otherwise noted. I'm not a fanboy or anything, it's just the system I bought first, so I tend to preference games on it (I like the controller better, too, and all my friends are on there).

Anyway, here is this week's reviews in blurb. And, as always, requests are welcome (and I promised a Super Mario Bros 2 for NES review this last week; sorry, I totally spaced it. I will do my best to get it out this week, though)

Earthworm Jim - 4 / 5

Halo 3: ODST - 3 / 5

Roller Coaster Tycoon - 5 / 5

Dead to Rights: Retribution - 2 / 5

Lords of the Realm 2 - 5 / 5

Torin's Passage - 4 / 5

King's Quest VII: The Princeless Bride - 3 / 5

Persona 3: FES - 4 / 5

The Legend of Dragoon - 2 / 5

Persona 4 - 5/ 5

Castlevania: Lords of Shadow - 3 / 5

Rock Band - 4 / 5

Oh yes, I've also started my "Rock Band Review Fiasco," which will be combination reviews of every Rock Band game as well as personal side-notes by me regarding how much I've enjoyed playing this game with friends and family. The first game is up; I intended to do more tonight but I finished a novel instead, so expect the saga to continue tomorrow with Rock Band 2, The Beatles: Rock Band, Lego Rock Band, Green Day: Rock Band, and Rock Band 3.

Have a great week!

Welcome to "Week in Review," where I summarize what went down this last week on Nathan Vs. Video Games, my attempt to review every single game I've ever played. Yeah. It's gonna take a while (especially since I'm still playing games currently).

I started off by trying to just do one game a day, but soon realized that would mean I'd be somewhere around the age of 50 by the time I finished. So now I'm doing two a day, with the possibility of speeding it up once I finish with the current novel I'm writing. I'm going to try and do one retro game and one modern game a day, though I make no promises to me following this system with exactness.

This week I reviewed 16 games, putting the total reviewed at 21. Not a bad start, all things considered.

Here are the links to these reviews with my blurb scores following.

Viking: Battle for Asgard - 2 / 5 Stars

Rayman: Origins - 5 / 5 Stars

Limbo - 4 / 5 Stars

3-D World Runner - 4 / 5 Stars

Lost Odyssey - 4 / 5 Stars

Legendary Wings - 4 / 5 Stars

The Binding of Isaac - 5 / 5 Stars

Parasite Eve - 4 / 5 Stars

Metro 2033 - 3 / 5 Stars

Protect Me Knight - 5 / 5 Stars

Resident Evil 5 - 3 / 5 Stars

Guitar Hero: Warriors of Rock - 1 / 5 Stars

PowerGig: Rise of the SixString - 0 / 5 Stars

The Rise of the Argonauts - 4 / 5 Stars

To The Moon - 3 / 5 Stars

Dead Space - 5 / 5 Stars

So far I've been mostly reviewing either Xbox 360 or PC games, which makes sense since those are probably the systems I've played the most on (except I should probably add the PS2 and SNES as close runners-up). This week I will try to get more SNES and PS2 reviews for you, with plans for Earthworm Jim, Persona 3: FES, and others already in the works.

Also expect a massive review of Nier one of these days, though it might get an entire day to itself considering how long it will end up being.

Thanks for reading, and please share! I might also try to compile a list of every game I plan to review for next week (hint: it'll be massive) so I can directly tick off reviews and you can watch my slow progress to the end.

Have a great week!