I agree wholeheartedly. The only other Metroid that immediately springs to mind for the survival horror designation is Metroid Fusion, though it's been ages since I've played it.

I'll throw in my two cents and advocate for Paper Jam. @disqus_BpFJhAJ8NT:disqus sets it out pretty well below, but I'll also give a nod to its battle system, since it keeps things very engaging for the entirety of its thirty hours or so.

"There are 7 extant films touching on the Aliens world, of which 1.5 are actually any good."

Good call on Phanto - that freaked me right out when I was playing as a kid! Much as with Nemesis breaking through doors in Resident Evil 3, Phanto effectively violated one of the principle rules of the medium at that time - if you escape the area in which the enemy is encountered, it cannot follow you.

I have a couple, but never involve the central mechanics of a game:

I don't know whether it's more baffling that the problem exists, or that the developers took exactly 0 steps to fix it once it was identified. The absence of post-release support was my one major criticism of XCX, given how stellar everything else about it was.

Oh, that's horrifying. What's wrong with people? It was quite heartening to hear the ways in which developers are taking this kind of thing into account, as prior to today I never would have even guessed at the potential for how creepy this stuff would be in a VR environment. Admittedly, I guess I hadn't actually even…

Nice catch - I would never have known that, and it casts an even darker light on Bethesda's recent decision. Yuck.

Thanks for the links! This is one of the rare cases where I'd already read one of them - the Kotaku one on Bethesda was a pretty discouraging insight into the state of game-related PR.

Have you heard XCX's soundtrack? They really took a hard 180 with that one, though I still enjoyed it for its absurdity.

Someday!!!

The Paper Mario: Color Splash soundtrack is about as good a score as I've ever heard in a game, from the original tracks to the remixes of classic ones. One of the reasons I know it's so good is that I've also been playing the Megaman Legacy Collection lately and, good heavens, what classic tunes! I had played the…

I still don't know how I feel about Zelda 2. On the one hand, its world was pretty cool to explore and the combat was surprisingly tight. On the other hand, it's so actively hostile to the player that getting anywhere in it is a chore, and the final areas of the game involving invisible enemies are a true test of the…

I'm pretty disappointed that I spent money on it, particularly given that it barely runs on my iPod, and when it does run I get the same interface issues you do. Yeesh, how did this get well-reviewed?

There's a Luigi's Mansion arcade game?! Who'd have thought? Also, your idea about the mansion-style boss is something I never would've thought of, and is so clearly the way that Nintendo should go with the next game.

999 is a modern classic. It also can probably be bought for a pittance these days, and is a nice game to play while unwinding since there's no real 'action' to speak of.

I agree with you 100%. Those are just the only two that I've played so far that really irritated me with their difficulty, though for slightly different reasons:

Checking out your article now. Is this an alternative account? The Hyrule Warriors DLC is awesome - Toon Zelda may be my favorite addition so far, as she's very weird and highly playable, but I'm looking forward to Ravio next week!

I vote for 100CC. The DLC would be fun (I say because I finally bought it), but I think it would be worth ruling it out on the grounds of ensuring a happy place for us all to retreat to while the country goes mad.

Oh cool, good point - election night Mario Kart will be a blast!