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JRPGs are bad. They are hundreds of hours long with pointless systems upon systems and combat mechanics from 20 years ago. They're always about fighting God and going on dates (I am a fan of only one of those things) and usually just end up with you having to read a guide to find out the optimal time to give one of your party members a piece of toast so they'll have an extra 10% extra damage in battle.

Persona 5 Royal has all of these things. It's amazing.

Animal Crossing: New Horizons is finally here and, unsurprisingly, it is very good. Who knew that exploring the spaces of video games with questions like "What if we made a game that has no conflict" or "What if we made a game where everything is nice, you have animal friends that are chill and cool" or "What if we made a game that you actually don't have to play in huge chunks" would receive such praise from not only lifeless automatons such as myself, but actual, normal human beings?

I think the original Life is Strange is one of the few examples that demonstrates that video games can be more than just shooting men in the face and lining up against the dragon to stab it. It's a slow, interactive teen drama with dialogue that sounds like it was written by a team of French people trying to emulate what teenagers sound like. It was awkward in places, but I still liked it. It's a common take, but Life is Strange was a better Telltale game than most Telltale games. It's great to see that it warranted enough success to see a sequel.

It's high time we faced the music: Metal Gear Solid 2 is a disaster. It's a convoluted mess that starts reasonably strong and goes further and further down the revelation rabbit-hole until nothing is left to surprise or shock you. Unlike its predecessor, it is a poorly paced car-crash that wastes hours of your time in cutscenes that go on for hours talking about virtual reality soldiers or whatever your girlfriend is making for dinner. A lot of the discourse around Metal Gear Solid 2 surrounds 'that one bit' where Kojima essentially predicted the future with how today's media functions.

Before we start our dive into the world of video games and how bad they are, we need to settle a few things first. This will be the first and only time you will read the following on this site, but…

Video games are not that bad.

You've probably seen those Steam reviews by players with thousands of hours in a game that they don't recommend. Maybe you think "Well that's dumb. Surely if you've played the game for so long, you must recommend it."

Right?