Grandia (PlayStation)
On the Rule 34 chat we were talking about games and Grandia came up, I felt like replaying it a bit, still a great game, I do wish they would've taken a bit more care of the port from Saturn though as there are manu minor flaws to be found, nothing that braks the game or changes the gameplay but lots of visual stuff, like textures facing in the wrong direction, abcent shadows, abcent sky textures and some abcent 3D geometry here and there, also some other stuff like the water effect the Saturn version had but that's at least understandable seeing as there's a genuine difference in the hardware between the two machines. Thanfully the PSX port did get some enhancements to make up for the shortcomings, like better shadows for the characters, better looking screen effect when going into battles, some more advanced smoke and steam effects and of course being in English and released worldwide unlike the unfortunately Japanese exclusive Saturn version, so I think the PSX version still holds up nicely with those pros over the admittedly minor cons. A great game regardless and every PSX gamer with even the slightest interest in RPGs should give this game a try.
On the Rule 34 chat we were talking about games and Grandia came up, I felt like replaying it a bit, still a great game, I do wish they would've taken a bit more care of the port from Saturn though as there are manu minor flaws to be found, nothing that braks the game or changes the gameplay but lots of visual stuff, like textures facing in the wrong direction, abcent shadows, abcent sky textures and some abcent 3D geometry here and there, also some other stuff like the water effect the Saturn version had but that's at least understandable seeing as there's a genuine difference in the hardware between the two machines. Thanfully the PSX port did get some enhancements to make up for the shortcomings, like better shadows for the characters, better looking screen effect when going into battles, some more advanced smoke and steam effects and of course being in English and released worldwide unlike the unfortunately Japanese exclusive Saturn version, so I think the PSX version still holds up nicely with those pros over the admittedly minor cons. A great game regardless and every PSX gamer with even the slightest interest in RPGs should give this game a try.
Grudge Warriors (PlayStation)
A tank buggy vehicle combat mission based game not too unlike Red Dog Superior Firepower on Dreamcast. Great fun driving around blasting stuff and has a good multiplayer mode as well, again much like Red Dog. The singleplayer game is hard and unforgiving as you can only refill your armor, not your health, with very limited refill stations scattered around the levels, thankfully you can save between levels but it's still easy to get stuck as the game not only has tough enemies and bosses but also incorporates exploration to find everything, kind of like a Metroid game, many a player have been stuck in their tracks not being able to find their way in this game even if they've been able to take care of the enemy forces.
Medal of Honor & Medal of Honor Underground (PlayStation)
They both hold up rather well, they're not perfect games but arguably two of the better FPSs of the 32-bit generation.
The Adventures of Mighty Max (Mega Drive)
A platformer based on the toyline with little playsets in the shape of monsters and stuff, a favorite toyline from my childhood to say the least, sadly I never got to play the game or watch the animated series as a kid but after having spent some time with the game and seen some clips of the show on youtube it appears I didn't miss anything important, the toys were easily the strong part of the franchise as the game is rather mediocre and not particularly well designed with questionable levels and controls and the cartoon looks rather cheap as well. Not an awful game but I wouldn't recommend it to anyone but the most old school fans of the toys like myself, I enjoy it to a bit but it got old really fast with repetitive gameplay and levels with so little variation at first I thought I had done something wrong and started the same level over again, but nope, it's the next level alright, they just didn't change a whole lot is all.
Cat Planet (PC)
A free downloadable 2D platformer type of game where you must manuever a girl with angel wings around a planet called Cat Planet inhabited by little cat planet cats that you need to find, 67 of them in tital. It's kind of a speedrunning game where you replay it often to get a better time with as few deaths as possible, you have unlimited lives. I've been able to average a time of about 5 minutes with 2-3 deaths which is an okay score I think, not world record material but I play it more for fun than serious business and my computer isn't strong so the game has a lot of slowdown despite being a rather simplistic 2D game with very barebone visuals, it's all about the programming I guess.
Cat Poke (PC)
In similar fasion to Cat Planet this is a little free downloadable game where you play as a little girl who can't go out and play because it's raining outside, so she decised to poke all the cats the in the house to pass the time. Poking all the cats requires you to not only find them but also lure them out of their hiding places so it's more of a puzzle game than a platformer. It's also similar to Cat Planet in that it times you to see how fast you can complete it if you're interested in that sort of thing, I just like playing it for fun though so I haven't kept much track of my times, I think it probably averages in around 5 minutes when I play unless I forget some item and need to backtrack and go get it, but a smooth run from start to finish can easily be done in under 5 minutes.
Façade (PC)
More of a social interaction simulator where your goal is to see what can happen than an actual game but a fun time waster nonetheless. It's a free download just like Cat Planet and Cat Poke but it's noticably larger as it's a 3D game with a lot of voice acting. Basically you get invited to visit some old friends and talk to them about their relationship in real time using your keyboard. I find it's hard to type fast enough and a lot of the time I end up missing to respond and the situation changes and moves on in perhaps not the direction I had in mind. I've gotten a few different endings so far but only one was anything interesting, the rest were just abrupt because I apperently said the wrong thing and got kicked out of their apartment.
Starsky & Hutch (Game Boy Advance)
A 3D open world driving game on GBA? Yup, and a damn good one at that! Regardless of what some less serious self-proclaimed game critics would like you to believe it's an excellent little game for the GBA, you have your story mode, free roam and other additional mission modes, lots of cars to drive and a nice big city to drive around in. It's rather slim to begin with but you unlock more as you play through the story. I like the visuals, they remind me a lot of GTA Chinatown Wars on DS. You can also shoot your gun out the window of the car so there's some action in there as well alongside the driving.
V-Rally 3 (Game Boy Advance)
Another 3D driving game on GBA, of the rally racing type this time. I was never a big fan of the V-Rally series back on PSX but this one really steps it up, it's closer to the Colin McRae and WRC games and much better for it. The controls are nice, the visuals go by smoothly and look very nice for GBA, I'd even go as far as to say they rival some PSX games, at least somewhat, the car itself is a 2D sprite with some rotation frames but the rest of the environment is all 3D and very varied and detailed, they did a good job not making the backgrounds repetitive which can often be the case. They have some basic damage info in the main career mode but beside that it's very much an arcade game, somewhat similar to Sega Rally. I find it interesting that they included a driver view from inside the car, it actually looks and handles very well from that angle, better than a lot of other games do.
Tomb Raider Legend (PlayStation Portable)
I'm not a huge fan of the Crystal Dynamics developed Tomb Raider games, I much prefer the Core Design developed games, but every now and then I play some Legend and/or Underworld. This time I felt like picking up where I left off in my current playthrough of the PSP port of Legend. It's not the best version of the game but it is the only portable version and it does offer some unique bonus content, so I still think it's a worthy addition to any PSP collection. It's still fully playable and enjoyable, they managed to fit just about everything in there with only minor visual drawbacks and some tweaked controls, it might take a minute or two to get used to at first but soon enough you'll feel right at home.
ICO & Shadow of the Colossus Classics HD (PlayStation 3)
Not much to say, it's ICO and SotC, what can be said about these games has already been said enough. ICO is virtually the same as it was on PS2 only adapted for HDTVs, SotC on the other hand has gotten a slight upgrade with better framerate overall than it had on PS2.
UPDATE #1:
Tomb Raider - The Prophecy (Game Boy Advance)
An original old school entry in the Tomb Raider series and a good one at that. It's a bit repetitive in the gameplay but at least it's approachable and the 4-letter password system makes it easy to get where you were last without having to worry about managing saved games and losing them due to the internal cartridge battery dying some day in the future.
Star X (Game Boy Advance)
Think Super Nintendo StarWing (StarFox in US) on Game Boy Advance and this is as close as it gets. Nintendo never made a StarWing for GBA so this third party developed game stepped up and filled the void. I have to say they did an excellend job as this game not only lives up to the task but even outperforms the original StarWing on Super Nintendo completely without any additional enhancement chips, it runs on just raw GBA power! It's not a direct copy of StarWing but the gameplay is nearly identical on-rail shooting with a flat shaded polygonal spaceship.
LEGO Drome Racers (Game Boy Advance)
Anyone like me who loves flat shaded polygons and racing games like Virtua Racing owe it to themselves to play this game at least once. It's a flat shaded polygonal 3D racer with offensive/defensive weapon pickups and speed boosts. While the tracks are fully 3D the cars are 2D sprites, but the game runs smoothly and at high speeds with lots of action so it's all good. There's also a version available for PS2, GameCube and Xbox but I sadly haven't gotten hold of it or even played it. Maybe, hopefully, one day I will.
B-Movie (PSX)
A fun little game where you pilot different customizable aircraft and take on an invading alien armada attack Earth while helping your fellow humans survive. It draws clear inspiration from games like Defender and old sci-fi movies.
Star Ixiom (PSX)
Kind of like a space RPG adventure. The main part of the game is similar to games like Colony Wars Red Sun but you also get to dock at space stations and walk around, talk to other characters to advance the story and change or customize your ship.
Sonic Adventure 2 - Battle (GameCube)
It's sadly not as good as the Dreamcast original but it does unlock some multiplayer bonus characters by default. It's visually muddier, both in screen clearness and texture definition, and certain effects such as character shadows have been drastically reworked and simplified. It also doesn't feel as controllable with lots of hit detection problems and different behaviour I'm not used to in the Dreamcast original, and sadly none of this is for the better. Regardless of the shortcomings it's nice to play the Rouge and Knuckles levels again, I love Sonic Adventure 2's huge treasure hunting levels, they were on a level of their own back in the day and even these days only a small handful games have been able to do something similar successfully.
Shadow The Hedgehog (GameCube and Xbox)
A game I've played a lot on PS2 over the years. It's nice to finally get to enjoy the superior versions with better framerates, faster loading times and more colors on screen. Beside those upgrades it's still the same game I know and love, with big multi-choice levels and paths to take throughout the game and good multiplayer options made even better with the addition of native 4-player split screen, not sure if the PS2 version could do that even with a multi-tap, by default it could only do 2-player split-screen. Still, the PS2 version is good enough and being cheaper and easier to find and get hold of in general still makes it a worthy purchase for anyone interested.
They both hold up rather well, they're not perfect games but arguably two of the better FPSs of the 32-bit generation.
The Adventures of Mighty Max (Mega Drive)
A platformer based on the toyline with little playsets in the shape of monsters and stuff, a favorite toyline from my childhood to say the least, sadly I never got to play the game or watch the animated series as a kid but after having spent some time with the game and seen some clips of the show on youtube it appears I didn't miss anything important, the toys were easily the strong part of the franchise as the game is rather mediocre and not particularly well designed with questionable levels and controls and the cartoon looks rather cheap as well. Not an awful game but I wouldn't recommend it to anyone but the most old school fans of the toys like myself, I enjoy it to a bit but it got old really fast with repetitive gameplay and levels with so little variation at first I thought I had done something wrong and started the same level over again, but nope, it's the next level alright, they just didn't change a whole lot is all.
Cat Planet (PC)
A free downloadable 2D platformer type of game where you must manuever a girl with angel wings around a planet called Cat Planet inhabited by little cat planet cats that you need to find, 67 of them in tital. It's kind of a speedrunning game where you replay it often to get a better time with as few deaths as possible, you have unlimited lives. I've been able to average a time of about 5 minutes with 2-3 deaths which is an okay score I think, not world record material but I play it more for fun than serious business and my computer isn't strong so the game has a lot of slowdown despite being a rather simplistic 2D game with very barebone visuals, it's all about the programming I guess.
Cat Poke (PC)
In similar fasion to Cat Planet this is a little free downloadable game where you play as a little girl who can't go out and play because it's raining outside, so she decised to poke all the cats the in the house to pass the time. Poking all the cats requires you to not only find them but also lure them out of their hiding places so it's more of a puzzle game than a platformer. It's also similar to Cat Planet in that it times you to see how fast you can complete it if you're interested in that sort of thing, I just like playing it for fun though so I haven't kept much track of my times, I think it probably averages in around 5 minutes when I play unless I forget some item and need to backtrack and go get it, but a smooth run from start to finish can easily be done in under 5 minutes.
Façade (PC)
More of a social interaction simulator where your goal is to see what can happen than an actual game but a fun time waster nonetheless. It's a free download just like Cat Planet and Cat Poke but it's noticably larger as it's a 3D game with a lot of voice acting. Basically you get invited to visit some old friends and talk to them about their relationship in real time using your keyboard. I find it's hard to type fast enough and a lot of the time I end up missing to respond and the situation changes and moves on in perhaps not the direction I had in mind. I've gotten a few different endings so far but only one was anything interesting, the rest were just abrupt because I apperently said the wrong thing and got kicked out of their apartment.
Starsky & Hutch (Game Boy Advance)
A 3D open world driving game on GBA? Yup, and a damn good one at that! Regardless of what some less serious self-proclaimed game critics would like you to believe it's an excellent little game for the GBA, you have your story mode, free roam and other additional mission modes, lots of cars to drive and a nice big city to drive around in. It's rather slim to begin with but you unlock more as you play through the story. I like the visuals, they remind me a lot of GTA Chinatown Wars on DS. You can also shoot your gun out the window of the car so there's some action in there as well alongside the driving.
V-Rally 3 (Game Boy Advance)
Another 3D driving game on GBA, of the rally racing type this time. I was never a big fan of the V-Rally series back on PSX but this one really steps it up, it's closer to the Colin McRae and WRC games and much better for it. The controls are nice, the visuals go by smoothly and look very nice for GBA, I'd even go as far as to say they rival some PSX games, at least somewhat, the car itself is a 2D sprite with some rotation frames but the rest of the environment is all 3D and very varied and detailed, they did a good job not making the backgrounds repetitive which can often be the case. They have some basic damage info in the main career mode but beside that it's very much an arcade game, somewhat similar to Sega Rally. I find it interesting that they included a driver view from inside the car, it actually looks and handles very well from that angle, better than a lot of other games do.
Tomb Raider Legend (PlayStation Portable)
I'm not a huge fan of the Crystal Dynamics developed Tomb Raider games, I much prefer the Core Design developed games, but every now and then I play some Legend and/or Underworld. This time I felt like picking up where I left off in my current playthrough of the PSP port of Legend. It's not the best version of the game but it is the only portable version and it does offer some unique bonus content, so I still think it's a worthy addition to any PSP collection. It's still fully playable and enjoyable, they managed to fit just about everything in there with only minor visual drawbacks and some tweaked controls, it might take a minute or two to get used to at first but soon enough you'll feel right at home.
ICO & Shadow of the Colossus Classics HD (PlayStation 3)
Not much to say, it's ICO and SotC, what can be said about these games has already been said enough. ICO is virtually the same as it was on PS2 only adapted for HDTVs, SotC on the other hand has gotten a slight upgrade with better framerate overall than it had on PS2.
UPDATE #1:
Tomb Raider - The Prophecy (Game Boy Advance)
An original old school entry in the Tomb Raider series and a good one at that. It's a bit repetitive in the gameplay but at least it's approachable and the 4-letter password system makes it easy to get where you were last without having to worry about managing saved games and losing them due to the internal cartridge battery dying some day in the future.
Star X (Game Boy Advance)
Think Super Nintendo StarWing (StarFox in US) on Game Boy Advance and this is as close as it gets. Nintendo never made a StarWing for GBA so this third party developed game stepped up and filled the void. I have to say they did an excellend job as this game not only lives up to the task but even outperforms the original StarWing on Super Nintendo completely without any additional enhancement chips, it runs on just raw GBA power! It's not a direct copy of StarWing but the gameplay is nearly identical on-rail shooting with a flat shaded polygonal spaceship.
LEGO Drome Racers (Game Boy Advance)
Anyone like me who loves flat shaded polygons and racing games like Virtua Racing owe it to themselves to play this game at least once. It's a flat shaded polygonal 3D racer with offensive/defensive weapon pickups and speed boosts. While the tracks are fully 3D the cars are 2D sprites, but the game runs smoothly and at high speeds with lots of action so it's all good. There's also a version available for PS2, GameCube and Xbox but I sadly haven't gotten hold of it or even played it. Maybe, hopefully, one day I will.
B-Movie (PSX)
A fun little game where you pilot different customizable aircraft and take on an invading alien armada attack Earth while helping your fellow humans survive. It draws clear inspiration from games like Defender and old sci-fi movies.
Star Ixiom (PSX)
Kind of like a space RPG adventure. The main part of the game is similar to games like Colony Wars Red Sun but you also get to dock at space stations and walk around, talk to other characters to advance the story and change or customize your ship.
Sonic Adventure 2 - Battle (GameCube)
It's sadly not as good as the Dreamcast original but it does unlock some multiplayer bonus characters by default. It's visually muddier, both in screen clearness and texture definition, and certain effects such as character shadows have been drastically reworked and simplified. It also doesn't feel as controllable with lots of hit detection problems and different behaviour I'm not used to in the Dreamcast original, and sadly none of this is for the better. Regardless of the shortcomings it's nice to play the Rouge and Knuckles levels again, I love Sonic Adventure 2's huge treasure hunting levels, they were on a level of their own back in the day and even these days only a small handful games have been able to do something similar successfully.
Shadow The Hedgehog (GameCube and Xbox)
A game I've played a lot on PS2 over the years. It's nice to finally get to enjoy the superior versions with better framerates, faster loading times and more colors on screen. Beside those upgrades it's still the same game I know and love, with big multi-choice levels and paths to take throughout the game and good multiplayer options made even better with the addition of native 4-player split screen, not sure if the PS2 version could do that even with a multi-tap, by default it could only do 2-player split-screen. Still, the PS2 version is good enough and being cheaper and easier to find and get hold of in general still makes it a worthy purchase for anyone interested.
