|
Post by dsparil on Dec 3, 2022 11:46:58 GMT -5
I recommend playing the SA version of the original if you haven't since PSIV mostly came across to me as drawing from the original game. II and III get smaller references, and I stand firm in saying that IV retcons out the entire plot of III.
Super Kiwi 64 (Switch, First Time)
A tiny Banjo-Kazooie clone from the developer of MacBat 64 and the Toree games. There's some good level design but only 8 small levels. Each has six gems that can be collected in varying ways although collecting all the gears in a level always yields one. Get 40/48 and the game can be completed. I got all the gems, and all you get for that is a place to input the codes hidden in each level. One of those does lead to a recreation of the original Kiwi 64, but that's the only substantial one. Still fun enough for $3.
Rating: 7
|
|
|
Post by spanky on Dec 3, 2022 13:06:41 GMT -5
ommadawnyawn2 Yeah I caught the PS dungeon theme in the PSIV dungeons that (I think) are supposed to be overhead versions of PS dungeons. It's a great rendition. It would have been awesome to hear the PSII final boss theme during the Daughter fight or even just a new version of Rise or Fall dsparil Yep I do have that and was going to mention it in my review but I was already rambling it too much. It's absolutely one of the best ports I've ever played and smooths out all the rough edges from the original. Still need to beat it though.
|
|
|
Post by Woody Alien on Dec 3, 2022 17:48:57 GMT -5
Minit (PC Windows, first time, time is in the image)
Minimalistic bite-sized Zelda-esque adventure puzzler from a few years ago where you can explore the game world for only a minute (hence the title) at a time. I think it was popular for a little while. As you can see I finished it but not nearly completed 100% (found a few more things since then), unlocked the New Game+ and will probably play it. Quite nice and cute with several clever ideas and a cool soundtrack, though there's not much appeal once you find most of the hidden stuff and the other bizarre characters. It sure has a lot of personality though despite being so minimal! 7.5/10
|
|
|
Post by Apollo Chungus on Dec 4, 2022 19:30:32 GMT -5
Half-Life: Blue Shift (PC; First Time; 2 hours 43 minutes)
This is the other the single-player expansion made for Half-Life, originally intended as a bonus campaign for the Dreamcast port before becoming its own thing when that port got cancelled. Like with Opposing Force, it presents the events of the original from a new perspective, placing you in the boots of the security guard Barney Calhoun as he tries to just get out of Black Mesa. I half-wondered if this would focus more on puzzles to contrast the previous expansion's emphasis on combat, and that turned out to not really be the case. It's more just the same mix of combat, puzzles and platforming seen in the original, only condensed due to the short length of the campaign.
However, that made for a refreshingly brisk adventure, with my personal highlights being the more navigational-centric stuff like clambering round the underground waterworks and the long trip to Xen involving a wicked cool waterfall. It also never gets as difficult as either Opposing Force or the original game, owing to not throwing as many enemies at you and the surprising lack of a final boss encounter. (Heck, it doesn't even feature the weapons or enemies introduced in Opposing Force.)
It feels somewhat rude constantly comparing this to what's come before, but I guess that's because I can only really describe it as more of the same. That said, I do like some of the original touches like being able to explore cafeterias and showers at the beginning, getting to see what ordinary life is like in Black Mesa for a nobody like Barney. Only being able to get armor by picking it up from dead security guards is a unique take on that system, and one which also conveys the chaos and death of the situation in a mechanically tangible situation.
In a way, this reminds me of the Nuclear Winter expansion for Duke Nukem 3D in how it feels like a nice brisk way of winding down from a bunch of long campaigns, though it's funny comparing the two games' approach to expansions. Duke sought to give more adventures with the same guy, while Half-Life revisits the same event from different perspectives. The former basically reinforces the idea that Duke is the most important guy since he's at the centre of all these escapades, while the latter suggests that everyone has their own story with nobody being more or less important than the other.
I know there's technically stuff like the Decay campaign from the PS2 port and the Uplink demo left, but I think I'm gonna leave the official stuff at this for a while. Amusingly, I'm quite done with seeing Black Mesa and would really like to try out mods that take things as far away from there as possible. Not sure where I'll start just yet, but the world is full of possibilities.
|
|
|
Post by personman on Dec 4, 2022 19:54:25 GMT -5
Blackthorne (SNES, emulated on 3DS; first time; 8 hours)
This game made me nostalgic. Not for the game itself exactly but more for Blizzard. They were very different back then, like the fact so many of them were pigs and exploitive asshole wasn't so apparent! *rimshot* But seriously their work had a very charming feel to it they loved Metal and the faux Viking culture that tends to come with it and other pop culture things. It's pulpy, and I dig that kind of thing. Like on paper one should call most of their stuff cheap knock off (Warcraft was going to be a pitch for a Warhammer game I've heard) but they come off to me more like love letters to these things more often than not and it just makes me smile. Might just be me and a little bit of bias worming its way into my thinking with how much nostalgia I have for old World of Warcraft and Diablo 1 & 2. They loved what they do and its just as apparent here as with any of their older works; the fact that the manual for this one has like four pages of a very elaborate backstory makes me think this was like an old DnD session they had or some comic pitch one of them thought up in highschool lol. Hell even the protagonist looks a little like one of Blizzard's longest standing artists: Samwise Didier. Wonder if he thought a lot of the premise up even though Jim Lee did the cover art the rest of the games art direction has that pulpy feel that is right up Samwise's alley.
Anyways, this is Flashback. At least I think so, I emulated the Genesis version of that game in highschool and this reminds me a lot of what little I played of that. Despite how much of a pain these kind of games tend to control I found this one pretty easy to get used to for the most part; doing running jumps could be a bit touchy but when isn't that ever finicky in these kinds of games? I could have done without the need to constantly have to stow your gun to get about especially later on when you have to pull it out just after climbing a ladder or something with an enemy just waiting to shoot you right away. In fact I was pretty alright with the game up until the last area where things get rather cheap. You'll encounter teams of enemies that just work way too well in tandem or are placed in such a way that avoiding damage is nearly impossible which is a big problem since restoratives pretty much never show up in the final stretch. It just plains get a little too mean.
The level design is solid and I enjoyed running around its mazes. It did kinda bother me how you commonly need to use explosives to clear obstacles and move forward. Well in quite a few cases if you use that on an enemy or the wrong one well you're stuck. As such I often ended up with more bombs than needed and I had no idea if I was allowed to use them or not. I think it would have been best to make a special type of bomb you know will be needed for opening the way so others can you know, actually be used with confidence. In the very least if you get a fire bomb you can feel safe using those on the plant monster things, they're primarily meant for that and the iron wasp things are solely meant for destroying the generators from a distance so I guess once you get past the first area the game does do this to a degree.
Otherwise just about everything it does is real solid. I wasn't overly fond of the whole cover based shoot out thing but it works well enough. The level design doesn't exactly stand out but its good, even if it gets sadistic towards the end. It's all just good... but rarely great. Really the only stand out thing is probably the pulpy charm and the hero's excellent animation. Its just missing that special something to get it to stand out much but ultimately its an even experience so I don't feel like I can hold it against it too much. Only out right bad part is the last boss with just moves around way too fast for the kind of controls this game has, I barely scraped by with one HP left after like 10 attempts lol. Least its like the one spot where the blind back shot is useful.
It was a decent time and I enjoyed it. I just wasn't wowed by it. Admittedly it's also a novelty for me since I've mostly known Blizzard as a PC developer with the Warcraft and Diablo series so its really interesting to me to see their older work. I never touched Lost Vikings and I've got Rock N' Roll Racing on my 3DS already so hopefully I'll get to those sometime. As for this I'd say its not a bad pick if you played all the greats already and want to check out something a little out of the way.
Rating-7
Aero Blasters (TG-16, emulated on 3DS; first time; 3 hours)
Was another dead night at work so I decided I'm gonna start clearing out some of the games I've installed on my 3DS but know I won't want to hold onto after beating them so I can make room for other stuff (the 3DS home menu has a limit of like 300 entries. Yes, I hit that limit *shame*) . I tried this way back in highschool but only got half way through it before dropping it. I remember it being rather easy so I thought it'd be a simple affair.
Ha.
Yeah no this game is sadistic and in the worst ways possible. This version has really bad scaling issues with everything being way too big and far too little space to maneuver in with how big your hitbox is. Combine this with a really dumb way powerups are given with them exploding out of these flying can things with a huge arc and its a bitch and a half to get upgraded. Not that its seems to matter much since everything is rather bullet spongey. The weapons themselves are rather underwhelming and many sections feel like they're designed around specific ones which I guess is fine; trial and error is a thing with older games but in my opinion if you're going to do that you need a system to switch between options rather than do a pick up system.
What is far worse though and ends up putting a hole in this port is some bone headed decisions with the level design. Levels 4 and 5 they decided you're in space now so you can't stop on a dime anymore and slide around. This makes what would be plenty reasonable bullet patterns damn near impossible to dodge reliably unless you cancel out your momentum by holding back into the left most part of the screen. This is vital for a little mini boss in the 5th stage and the space to dodge again is barely there. Just plain awful, awful decision. If that wasn't enough the final stage has you navigate very tight spaces with these indestructible missile spewing things... while the entire screen is jerking up and down. Just... why? It makes threading the needle demand pure perfection and come on, it's like they figured this was an arcade port so they had to throw in some bullshit to eat quarters... when there are no quarters involved here. Even if you get passed that you have an awful maze of blocks that could make the lava maze from R-Type 3 blush and is full of fake outs and goes on way too long. Then after THAT the final boss just throws blinders on 50 percent of the screen for absolutely no reason because its not enough that the boss is way too big in this version and you already had little to no room to move lets make you blind on top of it.
Absolutely horrible. Honestly the game isn't anything to write home about to begin with. It's extremely generic really has no flourishes to speak of so it really doesn't come recommended in the first place and then the final stretch just feels like whoever was in charge of porting it was having a really bad month or something and decided to take it out on everyone. Just blatant artificial difficulty and I cannot stand that crap. Honestly I don't know why I stuck with it stubbornness got the better of me and the first three stages are decently reasonable so I guess it all still felt possible. I believe it took me about 8 tries and I barely scraped by with two lives left on my last continue. If you really want to check this out just got get Mame and play the original. Looking at a long play is looks like it doesn't do any of the garbage this port does and the scale is correct. The Genesis version is a better option as well. But for this port I'd warn them away from it.
Rating-2
|
|
|
Post by dsparil on Dec 5, 2022 8:33:57 GMT -5
Danganronpa: Trigger Happy Havoc (Switch, First Time)
Grabbed all three when they were all on sale recently, and I regret that slightly if the first game really is the best one. excelsior covered all the basics under Danganronpa 2, but the short version is that the series is a fusion of light dating sim style elements and Ace Attorney inside a pretty bleak premise.
What surprised me the most is that the game is much closer to a first person adventure game than a visual novel. You can walk around the school or teleport using a map although sometimes you have to walk to a location. The game thankfully will show you the hotspots in a room as the strange semi-circular movement/rotation inside them can cause objects to be obstructed.
Where the game faltered for me is really in the story. I should note that I came into to this knowing absolutely nothing. The murders themselves do have twists but a lot of the time it feels like they end up “untwisting” and you still end up at the obvious conclusion. Maybe I’ve consumed too much mystery fiction over the years and have a higher threshold for real surprise, but it did get frustrating being so many steps ahead of the characters. I also felt like the ending was very disappointing, and obvious about 2/3 of the way through. The plot is clearly inspired by And Then There Were None, but that had some kind of a point. I left this feeling like it was a waste of time. Maybe the sequels will retroactive give this more meaning once I get to them.
I finished in about 17.5h.
Rating: 6
André Panza Kick Boxing (TurboGrafx-16, First Time)
Pretty good pre-SF2 fighting game.
I finished in 3:19:02.
Rating: 7
Darkwing Duck (TurboGrafx-16, First Time)
Somehow even worse than TaleSpin!
I finished in 00:35:03.
Rating: 3
|
|
|
Post by personman on Dec 9, 2022 12:15:25 GMT -5
Air Zonk (TG-16, emulated on 3DS; first time; 2 hours)
I vividly recall seeing this on display at a demo kiosk at Toys R Us. Which is kinda surreal to me to think that there was any space saved for retail to show the Turbo Grafix even back then. Feels like the thing barely existed over here. Though I say that and also have vivid memories of playing a tiny bit of Cyber Core at a Babbage's in Paradise Valley mall (the little intro where the guys face becomes insect like kinda shook me up). Anyways I further saw this game mentioned a lot when I rediscovered the system via emulation and was always hunting for more shmups to play. It always came highly recommended but I avoided it since at the time I just did not care for the idea of cute em ups and stuff. If you weren't flying some sort of fighter craft I just wasn't interested. I was vain and petty lol.
Finally picked it up and yeah I see why people like it a bunch. For one and most obviously its wackiness has charm to spare, if it already wasn't goofy enough you're a flying robot kid you're weapons consist of... bear trap mouths, letters, a tesla coil coming out of your face. Most of them are at least decent too and have good variety with all of them having a unique charge shot save for one. It even has this weird thing where if a projectile or enemy gets behind you you'll blast them rocket exhaust. I never really caught on to how to use it in any clever way but its interesting. Then you have little helpers that show up who can then powerup into transformations which give you even MORE attacks to play with. The balance of these seems to be all over the place which is no surprise with how many there are but it was a welcome addition just for how goofy they all are albeit many are a touch unwieldly like the baseball form. They're still worth pursuing just for the invincibility period they grant when you first get them, and there are so many you won't even get the chance to see them all before the game is over.
Which is one thing I had a problem with. Once again the final stage is rather messed up. For one it is WAY too long and after you get through the first section the whole partner thing just gets shut off. Uh...? For one with how grueling the last stage is the short invincibility would have made things more reasonable and two, come on why did you just suddenly turn off one of your main features at the games climax? I wonder if it was a bug or something. It's not horrible though since extra lives are pretty much thrown at you (beating the second to last boss just maxes you out) and while the final boss seems kinda cheap he can be figured out, it just took me a few tries. Thank god continues are infinite since some of the boss rematches can be assholes.
It's a good time. Though as much praise as it gets I feel its more style over substance. I was never really impressed with the level design or the music much else beyond the weirdness. It's all solid but best on the system? Eh to me not by a long shot give me Soldier Blade any day. It's still a good pick though just be prepared for the last stage wearing out its welcome.
Rating-7
Captain Skyhawk (NES, emulated on 3DS; replay, 1 hour)
Got this from one of my brother's friends way back when. I was pretty impressed with its graphics back in the day with what seemed like really smooth scaling and clever shading of the player sprite giving it a faux 3d look. Heck the whole game kinda has that late 80s ish computer aesthetic, I'd even venture to say the whole thing feels a little more like an old computer game which I can't really explain precisely just gives me that vibe with both its looks and gameplay. It's mostly a vert shmup only you have to account for your altitude and avoid crashing into the terrain which is your biggest threat really since enemies have the hardest time hitting you and you blaze past them so quickly. The levels alternate between segments that make me think of the NES Top Gun, a segment where you dock with a space station... in your F-14. Yep. Purchase upgrades (the canon is the only thing worth it) then a slight spin on the regular levels where you have to drop supplies of at very precise spot. These are annoying since if you miss one of them you loop through the stage and with how non descript things look its easy to miss them over and over since its easy to forget when they are coming. Your best bet is just flying into the ground and spamming the drop button.
Those missions repeat three or two times per and that's it. It's definitely a bit of a weird one yet there isn't anything that notable about it either. I only dug it up for nostalgia's sake and I don't think anyone needs to seek it out unless they just wanted to see Rare's older catalogue. It's okay for what it is though I suppose.
Rating- 4
|
|
|
Post by spanky on Dec 9, 2022 17:43:01 GMT -5
personman Funny enough that you mention it, one of the only times I've ever played a real TG-16 was at a demo station at a Toys R Us. And the game was Air Zonk too! Seeing that it's a late 1992 game, it's pretty surprising that they even could muster up a demo station at that point. I don't think the Turbo really had it's time in North America, but by the time the SNES came out, the party was definitely over for the system. I didn't know anyone that had one. Releasing stuff like TTI's Darkwing Duck and Camp California certainly didn't help the Turbo's case. Not to mention blowing their advertising budget on Johnny Turbo...
|
|
|
Post by Woody Alien on Dec 10, 2022 10:25:26 GMT -5
Maptroid (Browser, first time, time is in the image)
A browser game made in HTML5, a super-minimalistic mouse-driven metroidvania where you only navigate... the world's map! Really short but fairly clever and with a couple neat ideas. After its success the author made a commercial version for Steam named Maptroid Worlds that should come out in a few days, I wishlisted it and probably going to play it soon. This is actually the second run because I refreshed the browser page after I couldn't locate the final hidden point and useful item. It didn't take much longer though. 6/10
Drowning Cross (PC, first time, little more than 2 hours)
A free old-school point and click adventure game I found on Steam. The author released some of his games for free, the curious thing is that they are all 16-bit-ish platformers and metroidvanias but this one. But, despite being a totally different style and genre, it's fairly well made for being a short free title. The story is about a construction worker who discovers that his boyfriend had a car accident and then mysteriously vanished, after a short investigation a bunch of supernatural stuff happens and he's transported to a realm of memories or something like that, and he tries to get him back. I'm not too fond of the switch from mundane to fantastic in this case, but it does make kind of sense, and all the plot points are there. I'm not afraid to say that I looked the solutions of a couple puzzles because I never could understand adventure game logic... Anyway I'm giving it a good mark because for a game all being made by only one person in a genre they're not too familiar with, it's not bad at all. I only got the bad ending but despite being short I don't want to replay it for now.
7/10
|
|
|
Post by dsparil on Dec 10, 2022 11:15:51 GMT -5
personman Funny enough that you mention it, one of the only times I've ever played a real TG-16 was at a demo station at a Toys R Us. And the game was Air Zonk too! Seeing that it's a late 1992 game, it's pretty surprising that they even could muster up a demo station at that point. I don't think the Turbo really had it's time in North America, but by the time the SNES came out, the party was definitely over for the system. I didn't know anyone that had one. Releasing stuff like TTI's Darkwing Duck and Camp California certainly didn't help the Turbo's case. Not to mention blowing their advertising budget on Johnny Turbo… I think that with the Duo starting a roll out in late '92, TTI/NEC was hoping for a second wind which didn't really happen. This got buried in the PCE thread, but the PC Engine Software Bible's forum had an interesting thread with old promo materials and letters people received. It's so heartbreakingly sad! Someone got sent a retailer specific newsletter that was bragging about 7k sales of Lords of Thunder in 15 days and this being a record. The thing I find most confusing is how the Duo only launched in LA and then only expanded into a few metro areas afterward. NEC was and is a gigantic company that produces so much hardware. There's zero reason why they couldn't have had a big splashy nationwide launch.
On this topic: Night Creatures (TurboGrafx-16, First Time) In my head I kept thinking this was the late 90s game Nightmare Creatures. This is sort of a side scrolling "horror" game with light Metroidvania elements, but it's so ridiculously buggy and not a lot of fun. I finished in 00:41:55. Rating: 4
|
|
|
Post by spanky on Dec 10, 2022 15:33:15 GMT -5
Lord help me...Revolution X (Genesis via Analogue Mega SG, First Time)
No idea what possessed me to play this, out of the hundreds of games I own or emulate...this...THIS is what I settled on. I guess I wanted something that would really let me turn my brain off and oh boy this is it.
I actually sort of like the original arcade game. It's a light gun game with digitized graphics and a hilariously stupid plot. An army of anti-fun commies headed up by a dominatrix takes over the world and the only thing capable of stopping them is you, and the head of your rebellious youth movement - the mid 40's rockers of AEROSMITH. The game takes a darker turn when you realize that the scores of soldiers you gun down might be conscripted and brainwashed teenagers. Not to mention the natives in the Amazon level. Your gun also shoots explosive CDs for some reason. Anyway, the arcade game was pretty fun and loaded with secrets. It's a visceral experience that did stand out in the arcade -it's loud, violent and even has a bit of T&A (all the females in the game are played by Kerri Hoskins aka MK3's Sonya Blade). There's even a few sections, like the bus chase where you have to adjust your speed are sort of original. It came out in the twilight of the arcade era and I remember seeing it everywhere. Mall arcades, hotels, department store lobbies, movie theaters, grocery stores etc. I don't recall any game after Rev X that had that sort of coverage.
This port though...Wow! It's extremely stripped down. The Genesis port loses pretty much all the neat scaling effects found in the arcade. The camera in the arcade is constantly zooming in and out all over the place. Animations are have been way cut down and there are multiple entire sections of the game missing. For example, ihe boss of the Amazon level of the arcade version is an enormous insect that chases you back to the beginning of the level. It's one of the more memorable parts of the arcade game it's just completely missing here. There is a surprising amount of voice and quite a bit of FMV. That extra memory probably could have went towards beefing up the animation and including missing the missing content but what do I know! Maybe kids in 1995 would have rioted if they didn't see video of Steven Tyler. The whole thing feels sort of incomplete and is very ugly to boot.
You will take 1000s of cheap hits that you have no way of avoiding over a playthrough. This is offset greatly by the fact that the game seems to have unlimited continues with zero penalty. At least best I could tell, I went through tons of them and continuing doesn't even reset your score! In general though, it ranges from snooze inducing, (especially once you figure out that enemies can only damage you when they're on your side of the screen) to absolutely nightmarish (the bosses who are all damage sponges). Taking apart a boss piece by piece is fun, I just wish you had some more defensive options.
As for the music...do you like low quality, lyricless covers of Aerosmith songs?
This is a pretty rotten port of a game I have a soft spot for. Asking the Genesis for a port of it might have been tall order. Out of morbid curiosity, I checked out a video the SNES version and it looks like that one at least retains some of the scaling effects. 3/10.
|
|
|
Post by Apollo Chungus on Dec 10, 2022 18:59:32 GMT -5
Stacking: The Lost Hobo King (Xbox 360; First Time; 42 minutes)
This is a DLC level released for Double Fine's cool adventure game Stacking, which takes you to a whole new location - a fishing town rumoured to be the long lost kingdom of the homeless - and asks you to assemble the crown so that a new king can be crowned. Like the main game, you have multiple solutions to each mission, with the ability to tackle any of them at once or even discover characters in one area that you can bring elsewhere. There's even one mission that has SIX solutions, which is very cool.
It's got the same charm too, with a variety of goofy scenarios and characters with unique abilities that can be easily abused to get away with some pretty outrageous ideas. Cutscenes are fairly minimal, and it doesn't take very long to be beaten. But that did give me the incentive to try out the other solutions, and I've got four solutions figured out for that aforementioned so far. It might be a fun little stage to revisit every now and again to see if I can figure out how to achieve the other solutions.
I've recently been thinking about Stacking, which I originally beat as one of the first games I discussed for the Game Finish Challenge back in 2021. I'm putting together low effort video versions of those write-ups and it reminded me of how cool Stacking is, so it was really nice to have a reason to revisit this style of adventure game.
|
|
|
Post by spanky on Dec 11, 2022 20:48:30 GMT -5
Elevator Action Returns S-Tribute (Switch, First Time)
This is a game I've been waiting on a modern port for what seems like forever. I remember playing this in a Laughlin, Nevada arcade* in 1995 or so. It was the only time I've seen the cabinet. I only played the game for a little bit but it really made an impression on me. It seemed like the perfect candidate for Hamster's Arcade Archives, but it never showed up. Well lo and behold look what pops up on the new releases on the eshop the other day in between the usual assortment of low effort indie titles and smutty visual novels.
This is actually a port of the Saturn version rather than a straight arcade port. I think it's mostly arcade perfect and includes the original Elevator Action as a bonus. The S-Tribute port includes your usual host of modern enhancements. Quick save, reload, cheats etc but otherwise it's a pretty straight port. No art galleries or anything like that.
Did I mention the game itself? It's a greatly improved sequel to the original game. You have 3 characters, each with their own stats and unique weapons. You make your way through each level, trying to defuse bombs found behind red doors. Elevators are usually how you get around, but not always. The combat is very satisfying and strategic - you can shoot a barrel to knock it over, wait until it rolls next to a group of foes then blow it up and wipe them all out in one fell swoop. You can also Goomba stomp foes which is kind of fun. It's also one of the few games where explosions hurt your foes but not you. I do wish you could summon elevators when next to the shaft instead of having to wait for them all. It's surprisingly gritty, with lots of blood splatter, shuffling junkies and a surprisingly dark and ambiguous ending. The whole aesthetic reminds of me a cool 80's anime you might have seen randomly on the Sci-Fi channel back in the day. The graphics are top tier pixel art for the era. The sprites are small but very well animated and the environments are incredibly detailed. It also has plenty of zazz with some fun level intros and cutscenes.
I really enjoyed my time with this and as far as a straightforward 30 minute arcade experience, you couldn't do much better. 9/10.
*This is one of the best arcades I've ever been in. It had dozens of games, including plenty of cabinets I NEVER saw anywhere else like Ninja Baseball Batman and one of those mini MVS cabinets. They had an entire row of Japanese candy cabs with tons of fighters.
|
|
|
Post by Apollo Chungus on Dec 12, 2022 6:39:02 GMT -5
Peggle (Xbox 360; Replay; 2 hours 53 minutes)
After playing the Stacking DLC, I was itching to play something on the 360 since I hadn't touched it in a good while, and decided for the heck of it to play Peggle for a little bit. I eventually got more than halfway through the adventure after about an hour, so I thought I'd go for beating it in a later session. This is the first time I've played the game since 2015 or thereabouts, but I don't think my thoughts have changed all that much. It's a pretty neat puzzle game where you can take your time making your shots, and the variety of peg layouts and powers help to keep things interesting throughout.
Makes for a nice game to just chill out to, preferably while listening to music of your own or a podcast or something like that. At least that's how I found it because I've never really dug the presentation. Apart from maybe one or two of the tracks that get cycled through when you beat or restart a level, most of the music doesn't do anything for me and I don't like the backgrounds/artstyle/basically anything in the graphics that isn't to do with the actual pegs. Something about its brightly coloured visuals and always smiling characters has always given me this weird vibe, of something faintly disingenuous. Maybe that's because of how pervasively popular the game is, or perhaps the cues which would be taken by more cynical games made afterwards that instinctively puts me off. I'm not sure what it is, but there's a gut feeling that means I like Peggle but not enough to think about it more than this or what to play it again.
|
|
|
Post by JoeQ on Dec 12, 2022 8:25:49 GMT -5
Cruelty Squad (Windows) - First playthrough, Time: 1630min, 10.320s (in-game timer), Rating: 4/5A surreal, psychedelic and nihilistic "immersive sim" tasking you with assassinating key targets in a corporate biopunk hellworld. A pretty simple game at it's core, but it's utter and increasingly unsettling bizarreness makes up for it. Graphics are intentionally hideous, music is offkilter and several game systems seemingly exist only as jokes. An experience like no other. Debased and blacksuppositoried. I got all three endings, beat all secret levels and obtained all weapons, implants, organs and fish. The last of those was miserable, much like fishing in real life. Alphabet Challenge: ABCDEFGH-JKLM-OPQRSTU-----
|
|