December 5th:
Finally the online orders I placed during November arrived.
Wii:
Tomb Raider Anniversary
Tomb Raider Underworld
Mega Drive:
Jimmy White's Whirlwind Snooker
PlayStation:
Retro Force (Rental Copy, no instruction manual)
PlayStation 2:
Gumball 3000
Lego Drome Racers
Midway Arcade Treasures 3
Need for Speed Underground (Platinum)
Runabout 3 Neo Age
Scaler
Star Wars Racer Revenge
Star Wars Jedi Starfighter
Stock Car Speedway
Syphon Filter The Omega Strain
Syphon Filter Dark Mirror
The Secret Saturdays Beasts of the 5th Sun
Tokyo Road Race
PlayStation 3:
Baja Edge of Control
KillZone Trilogy
Xbox 360:
Moto GP 08
Moto GP 09/10
Moto GP 10/11
Tomb Raider Anniversary
Hardware:
4x Third Party PlayStation 2 Dual Shock 2 controllers (black)
2x Third Party Wii Classic Pro controllers (black)
2x Third Party Wii Classic Pro controllers (white)
PlayStation 3 PS Eye camera
Monday, December 5, 2016
Thursday, December 1, 2016
Now Playing - December 2016
December started with a new EDF game!
Earth Defense Force 2025 (PlayStation 3)
While not as good as the other games in the series it's at least better than Insect Armageddon. The framerate is abysmal, some of the worst I've ever seen, it also suffers greatly from immense slowdown and is extremely unresponsive. I don't like the two new classes you can play as in this one so I stick to the two classics, Ranger and Wing Diver as they're called in this one, equivalent to Storm 1 and Pale Wing respectively. I don't like how slow the Wing Diver is, she gets stuck in minor animations a lot forcing you to wait until you can input commands to do other things, Pale Wing was fast on her feet, extremely mobile and tons of fun to use in Global Defence Force on PS2, Wing Diver is simply not on Pale Wing's level. The enemies now have some more attacks they can use, like biting hold of you and thrashing you around for massive damage, this I have to admit sucks, you can shoot them while being bitten to break loose but the damage you take during this is completely disproportionate to everything else you're up against in the rest of the entire game, and this is something even the weakest enemies can do, it becomes nothing more than a reason to stay away and only use long range weapons as the risk of being bitten to death in mere seconds even when at full health is too great, this renders all close range weapons in the game a lot less attractive and I found myself after only a couple of levels using long range weapons only, not even bothering to read about the new close range weapons I had acquired, it literally broke the game for me and made it a lot less fun as short range weapons in the past were awesome as you could find yourself in a huge clusters of enemies swarming you and actually put up a fight and come out alive with nothing but the piles of dead enemies to climb over while looking for pickups afterwards. This is a scenario that will never happen in this game due to the enemies' new and wildly overpowered biting mechanic. Also the armor pickups are far less useful now, instead of like in the previous titles where if you pick up one armor pickup you get +1 armor for your character you instead have to pick up 4 armor pickups to get +1 armor in this game, and as such you have to grind 4 times more to reach the same result of previous games, forcing you to play the same levels over again a lot more in hopes to get more armor pickups, this breaks the game even more and something as simple and fundamental of advancing through the game like getting more armor to withstand more enemy attacks becomes a chore of legendary proportions. I also don't like the visual design of the Wing Diver, she looks like a Pale Wing that got a bunch of random polygons sprayed all over her, her design is cluttered and ugly, and nothing like the clean and stylish design of Pale Wing. All that said it's still nice to play a new EDF game and like i said, it's at least better than Insect Armageddon.
Burnout Legends (PlayStation Portable)
Killzone HD (Killzone Trilogy, PlayStation 3)
I love Killzone on PS2 and this is a slightly better version in just about every way. Everything was either left the same as in the original or made better as far as I can tell, which is exactly how a perfect remaster should be, nothing changed or ruined with only improvements to be found, literally perfect. I was a bit uncertain if buying Killzone 2 and 3 again as part of this Trilogy was worth it just for the HD remaster of the original PS2 Killzone, but now when I'm playing it I can say it was totally worth it. I already have the original PS2 Killzone and Killzone 2 and 3 separately for PS3, but the HD remaster of the original PS2 Killzone for PS3 was only ever released as part of this Trilogy and as a downloadable from PSN, and my policy of paying for downloadable content made it impossible for me to get this version in any other way then to cough up the dough for this rather rare and expensive Trilogy, but yeah, as I said, it was worth it, it was a great game originally and this is an even better version. It needs to be said though that the original on PS2 still measures up no problem to the HD remaster when played on a CRT SDTV, aside from the slightly worse framerate of the PS2 original they're virtually indistinguishable until you compare them on an HDTV and get the full effect of the 720p upgrade of the HD remaster, so if you're like me and you play on a CRT SDTV because you have tons of older games that HDTVs ruin then this Trilogy may not be worth it just to get the HD remaster, you're not really missing out if you have the original game on PS2 until you want to play it on an HDTV, only then is this truly worth it, unless you find it cheap enough like i did, it wasn't cheap but it was about half the price I usually find it for, otherwise I still wouldn't own it.
UPDATE:
Killzone HD Remastered is an on-disc install that takes up 3036mb and requires the disc to be in your PS3 while starting the game up for authentication, it then stops spinning shortly thereafter and the entire game is run from the internal HDD. It's on the same disc as Killzone 2 while Killzone 3 gets its own disc, so it's easy to switch between Killzone HD and Killzone 2 if one wants to do that.
The Killzone Trilogy is the only way to get a physical copy of Killzone HD Remastered as it was only ever released as a digital download on PSN. I am a fan of the original Killzone on PS2 and this is basically a nice but minor upgrade to that, it has a slightly better and much more stable framerate and runs at a higher screen resolution (720p according to online sources) with a much richer color palette, so everything looks sharper and nicer overall, however unlike Black on Xbox compared to the PS2 version it doesn't lose the grittiness because it has a really nice noise filter and such manages to not become sterile and too artificially clean looking in the process, I like this a lot.
Sadly I've ran into just about every single glitch the PS2 version has so it doesn't seem they ironed out the game at all, which is a shame. I've had to restart from checkpoints because the game glitched and refused load the next scripted event allowing me to advance more times that I can count, those damn beach levels are shit and I remember that happening a lot in the PS2 version as well, easily the worst part of the game, they're also repetitive, boring and not visually interesting so yeah, definitely the worst part of the game, they're quite short though so it's not a huge deal, it's just a shame nothing was done to fix this now that they had a real chance to do so.
Beside that it's a great game still and a better experience overall thanks to the minor upgrades over the PS2 original. At first I was uncertain is I should buy it as I already own Killzone 2 and 3 separately and the Trilogy is a bit rare and thus more expensive than the three games it contains if purchased on their own, given you have both a PS2 and a PS3 to play them all on already, but after having played it I feel it was worth it, Killzone is still great.
Baja Edge of Control (PlayStation 3)
Baja Edge of Control on PS3 is notably choppier than it is on Xbox 360, the menu framerate especially is really low, I'd say in the single digits when selecting your car, it runs at a stable framerate during gameplay but lower than it does on 360 with an overall choppiness present at all times, it's glitchier and has crashed on me forcing me to restart, they both run in 1080p as far as the internet is concerned but the visuals on PS3 are uglier with more jaggies due to the lack of AA making them look a lot more low res, the motion blur is so weak you don't even notice most of the time and I'm not sure but I think the colors look a bit muted and washed out compared to the 360 version as well.
The custom music option of playing music from the PS3 HDD is disabled (as is tradition on PS3, the only game I recall having it enabled is SuperCar Challenge), so there's no custom soundtrack option like the 360 version allows you to enjoy.
Bonanza Bros. (Master System)
I'm not a fan of this series but this version I really enjoy, the controls are much more reactive and useful, not stiff and slow like in other versions, and the game is very good looking and sounds great too. I don't really have any complaint about this one beyond how impossibly hard it gets in the last few stages. As far as I know this version lacks a 2 player split screen mode but it more than makes up for it with the best singleplayer version there is.
I've put up a gameplay video on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hgXuZgopHwY
Miniplanets (Mega Drive)
A homebrew game with 3D-ish top-down graphics, gameplay similar to a mix of JumpingFlash!, the Meteor Herd level in Sonic Adventure 2 and the Super Mario Galaxy games. You jump around on small planets and solve puzzles to reach the end while avoiding obstacles and enemies. It's free to download and plays on emulators and original hardware if you have some sort of flash-cart or equivalent.
the version I'm playing can be found in this thread:
Lyle in Cube Sector (Mega Drive)
Another homebrew game, originally for PC but now also being ported to Mega Drive. It's an open-world platformer where you pick up blocks and use them to jump higher and take out enemies etc. much like how Klonoa would capture enemies to use in a similar way in the Klonoa series.
the version I'm playing can be found in this thread:
Retro Force (PlayStation)
A PlayStation and specifically PAL exclusive release, Retro Force is a 3D shmup by Psygnosis released in 1999. It's mostly top-down but it also changes to a behind-view during certain segments of major boss battles.
The story goes something along the lines of in the year 2999 some aliens come and steal a holy time-travel artefact and four Retro Force pilots set out to stop the aliens and retrieve the holy artefact, chasing down the aliens throughout the ages gathering pieces of the holy artifact one by one, or something, I have the rental version of the game which didn't come with a manual and the in-game story is not presented in much detail, but I'll give it kudos for even having a story to follow as most shmups seem to not bother with more than a short basic backstory written in the manual with no hint of story at all in the actual game.
There are 4 playable characters, their ships look different from each other but all play the same, and you can play multiplayer with 2 players simultaneously, there are also 4 player modes but I have yet to try them out.
You can do elevation changes by climbing or diving to reach alternate paths, destroy bonus containing structures or dodge incoming enemies or their attacks.
You start off with a selection of 6 weapons, three types of blasters and three types of bombs, you can cycle through these and use the one you think best suits the type of targets you're attacking and situation you're in, you shoot the blaster type weapons forward and the bombs are dropped down on enemies below on the ground, much like the homing lasers work for background enemies in games like RayStorm.
There are color coded upgrade pickups for your weapons that permanently increase the respective weapon's power throughout the rest of the game, these are usually obtained from defeating mid-level bosses or found hidden in structures you can bomb or shoot open. There are also other special weapon pickups that grant you ammo for a third type of weapon, like 10 rockets etc., there's also a shield and health pickups as you have a health bar and can take multiple hits before you die in this game. When you die you start from checkpoints, which you have to hit in order to activate them, if you miss one and get killed you'll be sent back to the previous checkpoint you hit instead and any upgrades you've gathered after the last activated checkpoint will be lost and has to be obtained again.
The game is balanced rather nicely with the fact that you have so much you can do with simply forcing you to utilize all of it in clever ways, you have to dodge large enemies in tight corridors using the diving and climbing mechanics, you have to attack waves of enemies both on the level of elevation you're on and also all over the ground and the enemies are all over the place and they're quite fast, as you are too, so even if you have a lot of tools to use to fight them all with you won't be allowed to take it easy just spamming one attack, that'll just get you overwhelmed with all the other enemies that aren't being taken care of from other places where one attack alone can't reach. You have a smart-bomb too that explodes and kills all the enemies near you but it's not a screen killer like in many other games, it only affects a quite large but still limited area around your ship.
You go through time and each time zone has a few stages (I think 3 each), before you face an end-of-the-level boss and then an additional special boss, this is where the camera changes during key moments of the boss' attack patterns to behind.view and you play the game more similar to Space Harrier or Galaxy Force II, instead of moving around on a horizontally flat 2D plane moving "up" on the screen to go forward (with the ability to elevate up or down by climbing and diving respectively) you instead move on a vertically flat 2D plane across the screen with a big boss in front of you. I like that it takes advantage of the nature of 3D graphics like this with the elevation, camera changes and even slight gameplay style changes like that.
The music is typical late 90s beats, breaks and jungle similar to what can be heard in other Psygnosis games.
The visuals are impressive and look good with just about every graphical trick the PlayStation can pull off, like textured polygons, dynamic lighting, transparencies, motion blur and particle effects all at once with tons of enemies, explosions and fired shots all over the screen, you can tell it's a game made by talented programmers that know the system as it pulls it all off with a smooth 50fps framerate (it's a PAL exclusive after all so there never was a 60fps version released) ~99% of the time with a crispy high screen resolution, there are just no notable technical drawbacks in this game to be found, very nice.
The visual designs however can be discussed, some enemies blend into the background far too well and can be near impossible to make out, and having entire waves of enemies crash into you as you get more frustrated trying to see them can be argued as a negative, but on the flipside I have to admit I enjoy having enemies that aren't stupid and paint their ships with bright vivid colors that stand out and make them obvious targets.. so from a realistic point of view I respect their battle tactics, it makes them a pain to fight, but that makes sense, enemies that aren't putting up a fight aren't as fun to fight as those who do. So if you can't tell, I'm divided in my opinion over this.
Something I noticed when playing on PS3 though, a thing I don't think is up for debate whether or not it's bad is how dark the visuals were overall, making it harder to see said camouflaged enemies among other things. There is no setting to turn up brightness so I had to turn it up on my TV instead. That works fine I guess but had the game been slightly brighter it wouldn't have been needed. It's admittedly a nitpick, but still worth a mention. It's not as bad when playing on a PSX or PS2 though, and the texture smoothing on PS2 makes it an even better looking game so I strongly recommend playing this on a PS2 first, a PSX second and PSP/PS3/PC emulated/other emulated last, it's a game that really works best when played on original hardware.
Then we have the characters, and I for one like their odd mid-to-late 90s futuristic anime style. The enemies have cool designs overall and I like the look of the environments a lot.
Race Drivin' (Midway Arcade Treasures 3, PlayStation 2)
I love this game, especially on Mega Drive, but this version doesn't do the original arcade game justice, it's stuttery and jerky, it runs smoothly in the 3D but the controls, 2D visuals and sound are all messed up, it's said to be poor emulation as it's not an actual port of the game, just emulation of the arcade rom. It's still playable and I still like it, but it could and should've been a lot better, it's not exactly an advanced game these days, being one of the earliest 3D polygonal games ever and all so why they didn't do a better job than this is beyond me and a damn shame. Then again most games in this collection have glitches and issues. Hell, I can't even get it to save properly, it just makes a corrupt save file every time!
BadLands (Midway Arcade Treasures 3, PlayStation 2)
One of the oldest vehicle combat games ever and I still think it's great, it runs like it should and I have no complaints other than not being able to save my scores due to the save file corruption problem I keep having. Oh well, scores aren't that important anyway when you have the option to have unlimited credits and there aren't any real overall settings to save either, so I can live without it. I don't know if it's because I have a third party 64mb memorycard or because it's programmed by a retarded monkey (the latter seems more likely and closer to the truth tbh) but I don't have a Sony original 8mb memorycard with any free space on it to test right now so it matters not.
Hydro Thunder (Midway Arcade Treasures 3, PlayStation 2)
Runs smoothly and I don't think there are any issues (besides not being able to save). I believe it actually runs better than it does in Midway Arcade Treasures 3 on Xbox because I remember that version being a little choppy and glitchy at times and I haven't noticed any of that here.
San Fransisco Rush 2049 (Midway Arcade Treasures 3, PlayStation 2)
Runs smoothly and I don't think there are any issues (besides not being able to save).
Need for Speed Underground (PlayStation 2)
An excellent version of the game with only some minor choppiness in the visuals at times, but seeing as it maintains the visuals quality of the Xbox and PC versions almost perfectly that's not much to complain about as it looks fantastic on PS2 and actually overall performs better than the Xbox version does at the worst of times and infinitely better than most PCs out there seeing as most PCs aren't strong enough to play this game with the highest graphical quality settings. Honestly unless you have a high end gaming PC this is the best version, with the Xbox version as a close third.
Need for Speed Underground Rivals (PlayStation Portable)
Fantastic and easily my favorite in the series. It has all the parts of the two first games I love and throws out the stuff that didn't quite work, like the disappointing and mostly annoying open-world city from the second game. It looks great, runs silky smooth and has tons of cars and more customization than ever before.
Lego Drome Racers (PlayStation 2)
I've had the Game Boy Advance game for years but never actually played any of the stationary console versions until now. I have to say I like the Game Boy Advance game more than this, it's a better game overall with more interesting visual design and better gameplay. Not saying this version is bad, it's very nice looking and has slightly more content than the portable port, but it has some rather severe problems, especially in the physics department, you see it has rather good physics during gameplay but they're soo good it becomes almost realistic in the way you control the vehicles, and seeing as they're not really designed as cars but as Lego vehicles they also end up controlling like Lego vehicles, there are also powerups that screw you over with more physics like a hover powerup that allows you to go much faster but as with real hovercrafts it's almost impossible to control, even more so in a racing game with weapon pickups and unbalanced opponents that can be just as braindead as they can be surgically perfect. You can win a race or lose a race entirely depending on how randomly good the opponents are and what random pickups you and they pick up during the race. There's also drag racing which I have yet to even grasp how it works, I can't even finish a single race without the engine blowing up, so fuck that mode entirely.
FAST Racing League (Wii)
After having finally acquired some Pro Classic Controllers for Wii I decided to give this seemingly impossibly hard game a try and it turns out with proper controls it's actually quite fun, I like the phase shifting idea but it's underutilized and ultimately becomes a hindrance of the fun you could've had with the game instead of an enhancement making it end up a bit more shallow compared to other similar games like WipEout where the racing is enhanced by excellent weapon pickups. Though even with better controls it still gets too hard too quickly and you need to perfect how you play it through every turn with every ship on every track in every class in order to unlock the entire game piece by piece because it's literally entirely locked away to the point where before I got this new controller I had only ever played the tutorial and the first race because I could never get any further and unlock anything else. I'll never understand why they didn't just allow the use of GameCube controllers for this seeing as the Pro Classic Controller is almost identical to a GameCube controller, at least on a technical level.
CastleVania Rondo of Blood (Wii)
Originally a PC ENgine CD game, this is the Virtual Console version and it's a perfect emulation/port as far as I can tell. I love this game but it's so damn hard I never really get very far. It's a very impressive game for a 16-bit title, very well made, huge and filled with content, branching paths, secrets to unlock, even a new character to play as, if only it wasn't so brutally hard it would've been perfect.
Tomb Raider Anniversary (Wii)
I also have this on PlayStation 2, PlayStation Portable, PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360 and I can safely say this is the worst version in all aspects but visuals, the PlayStation Portable version is ever so slightly worse in that department. This version is slightly below the PlayStation 2 version in visual quality. What really makes this by far the worst are the motion controls, they're not just inaccurate and unresponsive but also incredibly badly placed out on the Wiimote and Nunchuk and poorly implemented in the use of motions, shaking the Nunchuck for example shoots out the grapple hook and you have to hold down a button and aim with the Wiimote to look around otherwise you have no camera control, but as you do that other things can't be done until you let go, the problem is this game wasn't meant to have those restrictions so it doesn't fit the gameplay and ends up getting you killed far too often. There are some added motion control puzzles but they're offensively simple and only serve to waste your time.
It's also an incredibly shitty Tomb Raider game seeing as Crystal Dynamics can't make a good Tomb Raider even with the direct help of Lara's creator it seems. These new Tomb Raider games play like the newer Prince of Persia and Uncharted games, only not as good and with fucktons more glitches and problems. Their version of Lara also sucks and is at best an insult to what the character used to be when the series was still in the hand of Core Design, so far the only developer who knows what makes a good Tomb Raider and who Lara Croft is and what she's suppose to be like.
Tomb Raider Underworld (Wii)
I also have this on PlayStation 2, PlayStation 3, Xbox 360 and PC and again I can safely say this is the worst version by far.
Most of the problems Anniversary has on Wii can be said about this game as well but for some reason this is not the same version as the HD consoles and PC got, instead they made a different game for PS2 and Wii and both consoles got a slightly different version of that game, and as a result they're infinitely worse in every aspect, they look worse, have a LOT more glitches, are significantly scaled down in size in the areas, have much simpler puzzles and overall are just much worse in every way. The PlayStation 2 version's worst problems are the framerate and the glitches, this game has slightly better framerate and slightly higher resolution textures but the bugs and glitches are even worse and the controls are total shit, despite being improved over the horrid controls in the Wii version of Anniversary. I managed to play this game up to the final showdown with the final boss but that entire level is just awful and in this version it's borderline completely unplayable even at the best of times and I just don't want to play it anymore.
Race Drivin' (Saturn)
A really neat version of this arcade classic and I have to say it's become quite a favorite.
Stellar Assault SS (Saturn)
A great upgrade from the 32X game but I can't help but feel closer to the 32X game than this one, it's more nostalgic and my soft spot for flat shaded polygons is too strong to ignore. Still, this is a fantastic game, one of the very best Saturn has to offer.
Super Tempo (Saturn)
Not as good as the 32X game but a good game in it's own right.
Cyber Troopers Virtual On Operation Moongate (Saturn)
Not as good as the Arcade Machine or the excellent PC port but an excellent game nonetheless.
Rush The Rock Alcatraz Edition (Midway Arcade Treasures 3, PlayStation 2)
It's okay I guess, just mid 90's generic arcade racing.
Rolling Thunder (Midway Arcade Treasures 3, PlayStation 2)
Much less glitchy than the version found in the Xbox version of Midway Arcade Treasures 3 but has a lot more slowdown and framerate drops instead, still it beats having tons of glitches so a slightly better version overall.
Tokyo Road Race (PlayStation 2)
Originally an arcade machine part of a long running drift racing series of arcade machines, PlayStation and PlayStation 2 games in Japan, this remains the only game in the series that ever got a release outside of Japan and it's a European exclusive. It's a perfect arcade port down to the fact that you have to use a link cable and hook up two consoles to two TVs to play two player mode. It's brutally hard and requires old school arcade perfection. I've been able to unlock most of the tracks but it's just too hard for me as such a novice to win the later races and unlock the rest. Great game though ,plays silky smooth and handles perfectly, every mistake is my own and my lack of skill is the only reason why I can't win, I admit to nothing less when a game offers such high precision controls.
Bonanza Bros. (Sega Mega Drive Collection, PlayStation 2)
After having fallen in love with the Master System port of this game I wanted to try the Mega Drive version again and yeah, I remembered correctly, it plays poorly, is very stiff and slow and the jumping just sucks. Nope, this is a better game on Master System, plain and simple.
Phantasy Star II (Sega Mega Drive Collection, PlayStation 2)
The original on Master System was better than this, enough said.
Phantasy Star III (Sega Mega Drive Collection, PlayStation 2)
What said about II applies to III.
Phantasy Star IV (Sega Mega Drive Collection, PlayStation 2)
This was slightly better than the previous two but I'm not impressed, these three are not among the better 16-bit RPGs I've played, that's for sure.
NiGHTS Journey of Dreams (Wii)
Not the game I had hoped, I got it and played it years ago and wanted to give it a second chance now that I have the Pro Classic Controllers but it's no better than it was when I played with a GameCube controller, it's still a bad game with constant low framerate despite very average visuals. The story is pretty bad, the voice acting is questionable and the gameplay is all over the place with very varied styles of gameplay but that also means you'll only occasionally get to play in the classic style of the Saturn original, and those levels aren't even that good either so it's all just very disappointing and not a very good time at all.
Altered Beast (Master System)
Like Bonanza Bros. I'm not a fan of the Altered Beast games either, but this version I really like, it controls well and has really nice visuals for a Master System game. It's a bit choppy in how the visuals animate but it's consistent and easy to get used to.
Ayrton Senna's Super Monaco GP II (Master System)
Not a great racing game but for the 8-bit generation it's easily better than everything the Nintendo Entertainment System had to offer.
Battletoads Battlemaniacs (Master System)
Honestly I prefer this version of the Super Nintendo one, it's faster and very impressive and well made for being on the 8-bit Master System, it's leaps and bounds above Battletoads on Nintendo Entertainment System in the visuals and that game was one of the most impressive games on that system. I do prefer the original Battletoads on Entertainment System because of my nostalgia toward the levels, enemies and music and such but the quality of everything found in this game is technically superior, there's no way around that fact, and had I grown up with this game instead I'd probably be more nostalgic for it and have a stronger attachment to it than the Entertainment System classic.
Super Off Road (Master System)
A very good port of a pretty good game, not a favorite of mine but I respect the quality of this port at least, it's very well made and maintains the technical qualities of the 16-bit versions, very impressive.
Kawasaki Superbike Challenge (Game Gear)
Another example of a racing game that isn't that great but still manages to wipe the floor with anything the main competitor the Nintendo Entertainment System had to opper back then.
Vampire Master of Darkness (Game Gear)
A very good CastleVania clone, also available on the Master System where it's called simply Master of Darkness. Honestly this beats all the 8-bit CastleVania games and it's only the 16-bit CastleVania's that are any better, that's how good this game truly is.
Tempo Jr. (Game Gear)
A great Tempo game and tons of fun, maybe not quite as good as the 32X original but for an 8-bit portable it's fantastic and very colorful.
Sonic Triple Trouble (Game Gear)
A great 8-bit Sonic game and possibly the one that maintains the 16-bit quality the best of all the 8-bit Sonic games I've played so far.
OutRun Europa (Game Gear)
Because OutRun is an arcade racer rather than a simulation racer it's aged better than Monaco GP and Kawasaki Superbike, and its' honestly a good game still.
Primal Rage (Game Gear)
Technically impressive but not a very good fighting game, definitely not the best version of Primal Rage but for a portable 8-bit version it's not really that bad either, it sadly lacks a lot of content, that's really the worst part, the lacking characters and stages make it a very short and shallow experience.
Battletoads (Game Gear)
An okay version of the classic, some parts are better others are worse, I'd say it's overall as comparable to the original as the Game Boy version is.
Aladdin (Master System)
A superb game that really shows off some impressive technical effects, we have 3D scrolling, parallax layer scrolling, great use of color, highly detailed sprites with good animation, tons of story and cutscenes, great music and sound effects, good controls, great and perfectly varied gameplay, forgiving difficulty with unlimited continues, no timer and even a password system. This game doesn't just take on the beloved 16-bit classics, it beats them. No small feat and I am at awe when I play it, I constantly have to keep reminding myself it's an 8-bit game I'm playing.
Galaxy Force (Master System)
Somehow better than the Mega Drive port of the sequel, Galaxy Force II. It runs better, had better visuals with more detailed sprites and better scaling and it's more responsive and better designed making it more enjoyable and fun to play.
Gain Ground (Master System)
A good version of the game but it fades in comparison to the 16-bit versions on Mega Drive and PC Engine CD, still a valiant effort and just as much fun to be had.
Syphon Filter Omega Strain (PlayStation 2)
A game sadly held back immensely by the fact it was heavily designed for online play. What is there for offline play is still good and reminds me a lot of the original games on PlayStation.
Syphon Filter Dark Mirror (PlayStation 2)
A great game for PlayStation Portable but sadly only an okay port on the PlayStation 2, with a few too many glitches and downgrades, along with some half-assed upgrades, it's still a good game on PlayStation 2 and it's nice to play this game in high resolution on a big TV screen and with proper dual analog controls but ultimately I can only really recommend the PlayStation Portable original version.
Earth Defense Force 2025 (PlayStation 3)
While not as good as the other games in the series it's at least better than Insect Armageddon. The framerate is abysmal, some of the worst I've ever seen, it also suffers greatly from immense slowdown and is extremely unresponsive. I don't like the two new classes you can play as in this one so I stick to the two classics, Ranger and Wing Diver as they're called in this one, equivalent to Storm 1 and Pale Wing respectively. I don't like how slow the Wing Diver is, she gets stuck in minor animations a lot forcing you to wait until you can input commands to do other things, Pale Wing was fast on her feet, extremely mobile and tons of fun to use in Global Defence Force on PS2, Wing Diver is simply not on Pale Wing's level. The enemies now have some more attacks they can use, like biting hold of you and thrashing you around for massive damage, this I have to admit sucks, you can shoot them while being bitten to break loose but the damage you take during this is completely disproportionate to everything else you're up against in the rest of the entire game, and this is something even the weakest enemies can do, it becomes nothing more than a reason to stay away and only use long range weapons as the risk of being bitten to death in mere seconds even when at full health is too great, this renders all close range weapons in the game a lot less attractive and I found myself after only a couple of levels using long range weapons only, not even bothering to read about the new close range weapons I had acquired, it literally broke the game for me and made it a lot less fun as short range weapons in the past were awesome as you could find yourself in a huge clusters of enemies swarming you and actually put up a fight and come out alive with nothing but the piles of dead enemies to climb over while looking for pickups afterwards. This is a scenario that will never happen in this game due to the enemies' new and wildly overpowered biting mechanic. Also the armor pickups are far less useful now, instead of like in the previous titles where if you pick up one armor pickup you get +1 armor for your character you instead have to pick up 4 armor pickups to get +1 armor in this game, and as such you have to grind 4 times more to reach the same result of previous games, forcing you to play the same levels over again a lot more in hopes to get more armor pickups, this breaks the game even more and something as simple and fundamental of advancing through the game like getting more armor to withstand more enemy attacks becomes a chore of legendary proportions. I also don't like the visual design of the Wing Diver, she looks like a Pale Wing that got a bunch of random polygons sprayed all over her, her design is cluttered and ugly, and nothing like the clean and stylish design of Pale Wing. All that said it's still nice to play a new EDF game and like i said, it's at least better than Insect Armageddon.
Burnout Legends (PlayStation Portable)
Killzone HD (Killzone Trilogy, PlayStation 3)
I love Killzone on PS2 and this is a slightly better version in just about every way. Everything was either left the same as in the original or made better as far as I can tell, which is exactly how a perfect remaster should be, nothing changed or ruined with only improvements to be found, literally perfect. I was a bit uncertain if buying Killzone 2 and 3 again as part of this Trilogy was worth it just for the HD remaster of the original PS2 Killzone, but now when I'm playing it I can say it was totally worth it. I already have the original PS2 Killzone and Killzone 2 and 3 separately for PS3, but the HD remaster of the original PS2 Killzone for PS3 was only ever released as part of this Trilogy and as a downloadable from PSN, and my policy of paying for downloadable content made it impossible for me to get this version in any other way then to cough up the dough for this rather rare and expensive Trilogy, but yeah, as I said, it was worth it, it was a great game originally and this is an even better version. It needs to be said though that the original on PS2 still measures up no problem to the HD remaster when played on a CRT SDTV, aside from the slightly worse framerate of the PS2 original they're virtually indistinguishable until you compare them on an HDTV and get the full effect of the 720p upgrade of the HD remaster, so if you're like me and you play on a CRT SDTV because you have tons of older games that HDTVs ruin then this Trilogy may not be worth it just to get the HD remaster, you're not really missing out if you have the original game on PS2 until you want to play it on an HDTV, only then is this truly worth it, unless you find it cheap enough like i did, it wasn't cheap but it was about half the price I usually find it for, otherwise I still wouldn't own it.
UPDATE:
Killzone HD Remastered is an on-disc install that takes up 3036mb and requires the disc to be in your PS3 while starting the game up for authentication, it then stops spinning shortly thereafter and the entire game is run from the internal HDD. It's on the same disc as Killzone 2 while Killzone 3 gets its own disc, so it's easy to switch between Killzone HD and Killzone 2 if one wants to do that.
The Killzone Trilogy is the only way to get a physical copy of Killzone HD Remastered as it was only ever released as a digital download on PSN. I am a fan of the original Killzone on PS2 and this is basically a nice but minor upgrade to that, it has a slightly better and much more stable framerate and runs at a higher screen resolution (720p according to online sources) with a much richer color palette, so everything looks sharper and nicer overall, however unlike Black on Xbox compared to the PS2 version it doesn't lose the grittiness because it has a really nice noise filter and such manages to not become sterile and too artificially clean looking in the process, I like this a lot.
Sadly I've ran into just about every single glitch the PS2 version has so it doesn't seem they ironed out the game at all, which is a shame. I've had to restart from checkpoints because the game glitched and refused load the next scripted event allowing me to advance more times that I can count, those damn beach levels are shit and I remember that happening a lot in the PS2 version as well, easily the worst part of the game, they're also repetitive, boring and not visually interesting so yeah, definitely the worst part of the game, they're quite short though so it's not a huge deal, it's just a shame nothing was done to fix this now that they had a real chance to do so.
Beside that it's a great game still and a better experience overall thanks to the minor upgrades over the PS2 original. At first I was uncertain is I should buy it as I already own Killzone 2 and 3 separately and the Trilogy is a bit rare and thus more expensive than the three games it contains if purchased on their own, given you have both a PS2 and a PS3 to play them all on already, but after having played it I feel it was worth it, Killzone is still great.
Baja Edge of Control (PlayStation 3)
Baja Edge of Control on PS3 is notably choppier than it is on Xbox 360, the menu framerate especially is really low, I'd say in the single digits when selecting your car, it runs at a stable framerate during gameplay but lower than it does on 360 with an overall choppiness present at all times, it's glitchier and has crashed on me forcing me to restart, they both run in 1080p as far as the internet is concerned but the visuals on PS3 are uglier with more jaggies due to the lack of AA making them look a lot more low res, the motion blur is so weak you don't even notice most of the time and I'm not sure but I think the colors look a bit muted and washed out compared to the 360 version as well.
The custom music option of playing music from the PS3 HDD is disabled (as is tradition on PS3, the only game I recall having it enabled is SuperCar Challenge), so there's no custom soundtrack option like the 360 version allows you to enjoy.
Bonanza Bros. (Master System)
I'm not a fan of this series but this version I really enjoy, the controls are much more reactive and useful, not stiff and slow like in other versions, and the game is very good looking and sounds great too. I don't really have any complaint about this one beyond how impossibly hard it gets in the last few stages. As far as I know this version lacks a 2 player split screen mode but it more than makes up for it with the best singleplayer version there is.
I've put up a gameplay video on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hgXuZgopHwY
Miniplanets (Mega Drive)
A homebrew game with 3D-ish top-down graphics, gameplay similar to a mix of JumpingFlash!, the Meteor Herd level in Sonic Adventure 2 and the Super Mario Galaxy games. You jump around on small planets and solve puzzles to reach the end while avoiding obstacles and enemies. It's free to download and plays on emulators and original hardware if you have some sort of flash-cart or equivalent.
the version I'm playing can be found in this thread:
Lyle in Cube Sector (Mega Drive)
Another homebrew game, originally for PC but now also being ported to Mega Drive. It's an open-world platformer where you pick up blocks and use them to jump higher and take out enemies etc. much like how Klonoa would capture enemies to use in a similar way in the Klonoa series.
the version I'm playing can be found in this thread:
Retro Force (PlayStation)
A PlayStation and specifically PAL exclusive release, Retro Force is a 3D shmup by Psygnosis released in 1999. It's mostly top-down but it also changes to a behind-view during certain segments of major boss battles.
The story goes something along the lines of in the year 2999 some aliens come and steal a holy time-travel artefact and four Retro Force pilots set out to stop the aliens and retrieve the holy artefact, chasing down the aliens throughout the ages gathering pieces of the holy artifact one by one, or something, I have the rental version of the game which didn't come with a manual and the in-game story is not presented in much detail, but I'll give it kudos for even having a story to follow as most shmups seem to not bother with more than a short basic backstory written in the manual with no hint of story at all in the actual game.
There are 4 playable characters, their ships look different from each other but all play the same, and you can play multiplayer with 2 players simultaneously, there are also 4 player modes but I have yet to try them out.
You can do elevation changes by climbing or diving to reach alternate paths, destroy bonus containing structures or dodge incoming enemies or their attacks.
You start off with a selection of 6 weapons, three types of blasters and three types of bombs, you can cycle through these and use the one you think best suits the type of targets you're attacking and situation you're in, you shoot the blaster type weapons forward and the bombs are dropped down on enemies below on the ground, much like the homing lasers work for background enemies in games like RayStorm.
There are color coded upgrade pickups for your weapons that permanently increase the respective weapon's power throughout the rest of the game, these are usually obtained from defeating mid-level bosses or found hidden in structures you can bomb or shoot open. There are also other special weapon pickups that grant you ammo for a third type of weapon, like 10 rockets etc., there's also a shield and health pickups as you have a health bar and can take multiple hits before you die in this game. When you die you start from checkpoints, which you have to hit in order to activate them, if you miss one and get killed you'll be sent back to the previous checkpoint you hit instead and any upgrades you've gathered after the last activated checkpoint will be lost and has to be obtained again.
The game is balanced rather nicely with the fact that you have so much you can do with simply forcing you to utilize all of it in clever ways, you have to dodge large enemies in tight corridors using the diving and climbing mechanics, you have to attack waves of enemies both on the level of elevation you're on and also all over the ground and the enemies are all over the place and they're quite fast, as you are too, so even if you have a lot of tools to use to fight them all with you won't be allowed to take it easy just spamming one attack, that'll just get you overwhelmed with all the other enemies that aren't being taken care of from other places where one attack alone can't reach. You have a smart-bomb too that explodes and kills all the enemies near you but it's not a screen killer like in many other games, it only affects a quite large but still limited area around your ship.
You go through time and each time zone has a few stages (I think 3 each), before you face an end-of-the-level boss and then an additional special boss, this is where the camera changes during key moments of the boss' attack patterns to behind.view and you play the game more similar to Space Harrier or Galaxy Force II, instead of moving around on a horizontally flat 2D plane moving "up" on the screen to go forward (with the ability to elevate up or down by climbing and diving respectively) you instead move on a vertically flat 2D plane across the screen with a big boss in front of you. I like that it takes advantage of the nature of 3D graphics like this with the elevation, camera changes and even slight gameplay style changes like that.
The music is typical late 90s beats, breaks and jungle similar to what can be heard in other Psygnosis games.
The visuals are impressive and look good with just about every graphical trick the PlayStation can pull off, like textured polygons, dynamic lighting, transparencies, motion blur and particle effects all at once with tons of enemies, explosions and fired shots all over the screen, you can tell it's a game made by talented programmers that know the system as it pulls it all off with a smooth 50fps framerate (it's a PAL exclusive after all so there never was a 60fps version released) ~99% of the time with a crispy high screen resolution, there are just no notable technical drawbacks in this game to be found, very nice.
The visual designs however can be discussed, some enemies blend into the background far too well and can be near impossible to make out, and having entire waves of enemies crash into you as you get more frustrated trying to see them can be argued as a negative, but on the flipside I have to admit I enjoy having enemies that aren't stupid and paint their ships with bright vivid colors that stand out and make them obvious targets.. so from a realistic point of view I respect their battle tactics, it makes them a pain to fight, but that makes sense, enemies that aren't putting up a fight aren't as fun to fight as those who do. So if you can't tell, I'm divided in my opinion over this.
Something I noticed when playing on PS3 though, a thing I don't think is up for debate whether or not it's bad is how dark the visuals were overall, making it harder to see said camouflaged enemies among other things. There is no setting to turn up brightness so I had to turn it up on my TV instead. That works fine I guess but had the game been slightly brighter it wouldn't have been needed. It's admittedly a nitpick, but still worth a mention. It's not as bad when playing on a PSX or PS2 though, and the texture smoothing on PS2 makes it an even better looking game so I strongly recommend playing this on a PS2 first, a PSX second and PSP/PS3/PC emulated/other emulated last, it's a game that really works best when played on original hardware.
Then we have the characters, and I for one like their odd mid-to-late 90s futuristic anime style. The enemies have cool designs overall and I like the look of the environments a lot.
Race Drivin' (Midway Arcade Treasures 3, PlayStation 2)
I love this game, especially on Mega Drive, but this version doesn't do the original arcade game justice, it's stuttery and jerky, it runs smoothly in the 3D but the controls, 2D visuals and sound are all messed up, it's said to be poor emulation as it's not an actual port of the game, just emulation of the arcade rom. It's still playable and I still like it, but it could and should've been a lot better, it's not exactly an advanced game these days, being one of the earliest 3D polygonal games ever and all so why they didn't do a better job than this is beyond me and a damn shame. Then again most games in this collection have glitches and issues. Hell, I can't even get it to save properly, it just makes a corrupt save file every time!
BadLands (Midway Arcade Treasures 3, PlayStation 2)
One of the oldest vehicle combat games ever and I still think it's great, it runs like it should and I have no complaints other than not being able to save my scores due to the save file corruption problem I keep having. Oh well, scores aren't that important anyway when you have the option to have unlimited credits and there aren't any real overall settings to save either, so I can live without it. I don't know if it's because I have a third party 64mb memorycard or because it's programmed by a retarded monkey (the latter seems more likely and closer to the truth tbh) but I don't have a Sony original 8mb memorycard with any free space on it to test right now so it matters not.
Hydro Thunder (Midway Arcade Treasures 3, PlayStation 2)
Runs smoothly and I don't think there are any issues (besides not being able to save). I believe it actually runs better than it does in Midway Arcade Treasures 3 on Xbox because I remember that version being a little choppy and glitchy at times and I haven't noticed any of that here.
San Fransisco Rush 2049 (Midway Arcade Treasures 3, PlayStation 2)
Runs smoothly and I don't think there are any issues (besides not being able to save).
Need for Speed Underground (PlayStation 2)
An excellent version of the game with only some minor choppiness in the visuals at times, but seeing as it maintains the visuals quality of the Xbox and PC versions almost perfectly that's not much to complain about as it looks fantastic on PS2 and actually overall performs better than the Xbox version does at the worst of times and infinitely better than most PCs out there seeing as most PCs aren't strong enough to play this game with the highest graphical quality settings. Honestly unless you have a high end gaming PC this is the best version, with the Xbox version as a close third.
Need for Speed Underground Rivals (PlayStation Portable)
Fantastic and easily my favorite in the series. It has all the parts of the two first games I love and throws out the stuff that didn't quite work, like the disappointing and mostly annoying open-world city from the second game. It looks great, runs silky smooth and has tons of cars and more customization than ever before.
Lego Drome Racers (PlayStation 2)
I've had the Game Boy Advance game for years but never actually played any of the stationary console versions until now. I have to say I like the Game Boy Advance game more than this, it's a better game overall with more interesting visual design and better gameplay. Not saying this version is bad, it's very nice looking and has slightly more content than the portable port, but it has some rather severe problems, especially in the physics department, you see it has rather good physics during gameplay but they're soo good it becomes almost realistic in the way you control the vehicles, and seeing as they're not really designed as cars but as Lego vehicles they also end up controlling like Lego vehicles, there are also powerups that screw you over with more physics like a hover powerup that allows you to go much faster but as with real hovercrafts it's almost impossible to control, even more so in a racing game with weapon pickups and unbalanced opponents that can be just as braindead as they can be surgically perfect. You can win a race or lose a race entirely depending on how randomly good the opponents are and what random pickups you and they pick up during the race. There's also drag racing which I have yet to even grasp how it works, I can't even finish a single race without the engine blowing up, so fuck that mode entirely.
FAST Racing League (Wii)
After having finally acquired some Pro Classic Controllers for Wii I decided to give this seemingly impossibly hard game a try and it turns out with proper controls it's actually quite fun, I like the phase shifting idea but it's underutilized and ultimately becomes a hindrance of the fun you could've had with the game instead of an enhancement making it end up a bit more shallow compared to other similar games like WipEout where the racing is enhanced by excellent weapon pickups. Though even with better controls it still gets too hard too quickly and you need to perfect how you play it through every turn with every ship on every track in every class in order to unlock the entire game piece by piece because it's literally entirely locked away to the point where before I got this new controller I had only ever played the tutorial and the first race because I could never get any further and unlock anything else. I'll never understand why they didn't just allow the use of GameCube controllers for this seeing as the Pro Classic Controller is almost identical to a GameCube controller, at least on a technical level.
CastleVania Rondo of Blood (Wii)
Originally a PC ENgine CD game, this is the Virtual Console version and it's a perfect emulation/port as far as I can tell. I love this game but it's so damn hard I never really get very far. It's a very impressive game for a 16-bit title, very well made, huge and filled with content, branching paths, secrets to unlock, even a new character to play as, if only it wasn't so brutally hard it would've been perfect.
Tomb Raider Anniversary (Wii)
I also have this on PlayStation 2, PlayStation Portable, PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360 and I can safely say this is the worst version in all aspects but visuals, the PlayStation Portable version is ever so slightly worse in that department. This version is slightly below the PlayStation 2 version in visual quality. What really makes this by far the worst are the motion controls, they're not just inaccurate and unresponsive but also incredibly badly placed out on the Wiimote and Nunchuk and poorly implemented in the use of motions, shaking the Nunchuck for example shoots out the grapple hook and you have to hold down a button and aim with the Wiimote to look around otherwise you have no camera control, but as you do that other things can't be done until you let go, the problem is this game wasn't meant to have those restrictions so it doesn't fit the gameplay and ends up getting you killed far too often. There are some added motion control puzzles but they're offensively simple and only serve to waste your time.
It's also an incredibly shitty Tomb Raider game seeing as Crystal Dynamics can't make a good Tomb Raider even with the direct help of Lara's creator it seems. These new Tomb Raider games play like the newer Prince of Persia and Uncharted games, only not as good and with fucktons more glitches and problems. Their version of Lara also sucks and is at best an insult to what the character used to be when the series was still in the hand of Core Design, so far the only developer who knows what makes a good Tomb Raider and who Lara Croft is and what she's suppose to be like.
Tomb Raider Underworld (Wii)
I also have this on PlayStation 2, PlayStation 3, Xbox 360 and PC and again I can safely say this is the worst version by far.
Most of the problems Anniversary has on Wii can be said about this game as well but for some reason this is not the same version as the HD consoles and PC got, instead they made a different game for PS2 and Wii and both consoles got a slightly different version of that game, and as a result they're infinitely worse in every aspect, they look worse, have a LOT more glitches, are significantly scaled down in size in the areas, have much simpler puzzles and overall are just much worse in every way. The PlayStation 2 version's worst problems are the framerate and the glitches, this game has slightly better framerate and slightly higher resolution textures but the bugs and glitches are even worse and the controls are total shit, despite being improved over the horrid controls in the Wii version of Anniversary. I managed to play this game up to the final showdown with the final boss but that entire level is just awful and in this version it's borderline completely unplayable even at the best of times and I just don't want to play it anymore.
Race Drivin' (Saturn)
A really neat version of this arcade classic and I have to say it's become quite a favorite.
Stellar Assault SS (Saturn)
A great upgrade from the 32X game but I can't help but feel closer to the 32X game than this one, it's more nostalgic and my soft spot for flat shaded polygons is too strong to ignore. Still, this is a fantastic game, one of the very best Saturn has to offer.
Super Tempo (Saturn)
Not as good as the 32X game but a good game in it's own right.
Cyber Troopers Virtual On Operation Moongate (Saturn)
Not as good as the Arcade Machine or the excellent PC port but an excellent game nonetheless.
Rush The Rock Alcatraz Edition (Midway Arcade Treasures 3, PlayStation 2)
It's okay I guess, just mid 90's generic arcade racing.
Rolling Thunder (Midway Arcade Treasures 3, PlayStation 2)
Much less glitchy than the version found in the Xbox version of Midway Arcade Treasures 3 but has a lot more slowdown and framerate drops instead, still it beats having tons of glitches so a slightly better version overall.
Tokyo Road Race (PlayStation 2)
Originally an arcade machine part of a long running drift racing series of arcade machines, PlayStation and PlayStation 2 games in Japan, this remains the only game in the series that ever got a release outside of Japan and it's a European exclusive. It's a perfect arcade port down to the fact that you have to use a link cable and hook up two consoles to two TVs to play two player mode. It's brutally hard and requires old school arcade perfection. I've been able to unlock most of the tracks but it's just too hard for me as such a novice to win the later races and unlock the rest. Great game though ,plays silky smooth and handles perfectly, every mistake is my own and my lack of skill is the only reason why I can't win, I admit to nothing less when a game offers such high precision controls.
Bonanza Bros. (Sega Mega Drive Collection, PlayStation 2)
After having fallen in love with the Master System port of this game I wanted to try the Mega Drive version again and yeah, I remembered correctly, it plays poorly, is very stiff and slow and the jumping just sucks. Nope, this is a better game on Master System, plain and simple.
Phantasy Star II (Sega Mega Drive Collection, PlayStation 2)
The original on Master System was better than this, enough said.
Phantasy Star III (Sega Mega Drive Collection, PlayStation 2)
What said about II applies to III.
Phantasy Star IV (Sega Mega Drive Collection, PlayStation 2)
This was slightly better than the previous two but I'm not impressed, these three are not among the better 16-bit RPGs I've played, that's for sure.
NiGHTS Journey of Dreams (Wii)
Not the game I had hoped, I got it and played it years ago and wanted to give it a second chance now that I have the Pro Classic Controllers but it's no better than it was when I played with a GameCube controller, it's still a bad game with constant low framerate despite very average visuals. The story is pretty bad, the voice acting is questionable and the gameplay is all over the place with very varied styles of gameplay but that also means you'll only occasionally get to play in the classic style of the Saturn original, and those levels aren't even that good either so it's all just very disappointing and not a very good time at all.
Altered Beast (Master System)
Like Bonanza Bros. I'm not a fan of the Altered Beast games either, but this version I really like, it controls well and has really nice visuals for a Master System game. It's a bit choppy in how the visuals animate but it's consistent and easy to get used to.
Ayrton Senna's Super Monaco GP II (Master System)
Not a great racing game but for the 8-bit generation it's easily better than everything the Nintendo Entertainment System had to offer.
Battletoads Battlemaniacs (Master System)
Honestly I prefer this version of the Super Nintendo one, it's faster and very impressive and well made for being on the 8-bit Master System, it's leaps and bounds above Battletoads on Nintendo Entertainment System in the visuals and that game was one of the most impressive games on that system. I do prefer the original Battletoads on Entertainment System because of my nostalgia toward the levels, enemies and music and such but the quality of everything found in this game is technically superior, there's no way around that fact, and had I grown up with this game instead I'd probably be more nostalgic for it and have a stronger attachment to it than the Entertainment System classic.
Super Off Road (Master System)
A very good port of a pretty good game, not a favorite of mine but I respect the quality of this port at least, it's very well made and maintains the technical qualities of the 16-bit versions, very impressive.
Kawasaki Superbike Challenge (Game Gear)
Another example of a racing game that isn't that great but still manages to wipe the floor with anything the main competitor the Nintendo Entertainment System had to opper back then.
Vampire Master of Darkness (Game Gear)
A very good CastleVania clone, also available on the Master System where it's called simply Master of Darkness. Honestly this beats all the 8-bit CastleVania games and it's only the 16-bit CastleVania's that are any better, that's how good this game truly is.
Tempo Jr. (Game Gear)
A great Tempo game and tons of fun, maybe not quite as good as the 32X original but for an 8-bit portable it's fantastic and very colorful.
Sonic Triple Trouble (Game Gear)
A great 8-bit Sonic game and possibly the one that maintains the 16-bit quality the best of all the 8-bit Sonic games I've played so far.
OutRun Europa (Game Gear)
Because OutRun is an arcade racer rather than a simulation racer it's aged better than Monaco GP and Kawasaki Superbike, and its' honestly a good game still.
Primal Rage (Game Gear)
Technically impressive but not a very good fighting game, definitely not the best version of Primal Rage but for a portable 8-bit version it's not really that bad either, it sadly lacks a lot of content, that's really the worst part, the lacking characters and stages make it a very short and shallow experience.
Battletoads (Game Gear)
An okay version of the classic, some parts are better others are worse, I'd say it's overall as comparable to the original as the Game Boy version is.
Aladdin (Master System)
A superb game that really shows off some impressive technical effects, we have 3D scrolling, parallax layer scrolling, great use of color, highly detailed sprites with good animation, tons of story and cutscenes, great music and sound effects, good controls, great and perfectly varied gameplay, forgiving difficulty with unlimited continues, no timer and even a password system. This game doesn't just take on the beloved 16-bit classics, it beats them. No small feat and I am at awe when I play it, I constantly have to keep reminding myself it's an 8-bit game I'm playing.
Galaxy Force (Master System)
Somehow better than the Mega Drive port of the sequel, Galaxy Force II. It runs better, had better visuals with more detailed sprites and better scaling and it's more responsive and better designed making it more enjoyable and fun to play.
Gain Ground (Master System)
A good version of the game but it fades in comparison to the 16-bit versions on Mega Drive and PC Engine CD, still a valiant effort and just as much fun to be had.
Syphon Filter Omega Strain (PlayStation 2)
A game sadly held back immensely by the fact it was heavily designed for online play. What is there for offline play is still good and reminds me a lot of the original games on PlayStation.
Syphon Filter Dark Mirror (PlayStation 2)
A great game for PlayStation Portable but sadly only an okay port on the PlayStation 2, with a few too many glitches and downgrades, along with some half-assed upgrades, it's still a good game on PlayStation 2 and it's nice to play this game in high resolution on a big TV screen and with proper dual analog controls but ultimately I can only really recommend the PlayStation Portable original version.
Wednesday, November 2, 2016
Now Playing - November 2016
Started the month with some game purchases so I got to playing them right away.
Dogz 2 (Game Boy Advance)
Tamagotchi is better, any Tamagotchi.
Daxter (PlayStation Portable)
One of the countless early impressive titles for PSP and of course still great today.
LEGO Star Wars II The Original Trilogy (PlayStation Portable)
Picking up where I left off back in 2012, still a great game.
Tekken Dark Resurrection (PlayStation Portable)
Still one of the best fighting games ever.
Checkmate (PlayStation)
Low Budget Chess - The Video Game.
SuperCar Challenge (PlayStation 3)
Generations Lost (Mega Drive)
Burnout Legends (PlayStation Portable)
It's basically a streamlined version of Burnout 3 Takedown ported to PSP, where 3 had tons of padding and annoying filler this gets to the gameplay, there are no long annoying mandatory tutorial videos you have to sit through anymore which is fantastic as those damn near ruined the whole game in 3.
Dogz 2 (Game Boy Advance)
Tamagotchi is better, any Tamagotchi.
Daxter (PlayStation Portable)
One of the countless early impressive titles for PSP and of course still great today.
LEGO Star Wars II The Original Trilogy (PlayStation Portable)
Picking up where I left off back in 2012, still a great game.
Tekken Dark Resurrection (PlayStation Portable)
Still one of the best fighting games ever.
Checkmate (PlayStation)
Low Budget Chess - The Video Game.
SuperCar Challenge (PlayStation 3)
Generations Lost (Mega Drive)
Burnout Legends (PlayStation Portable)
It's basically a streamlined version of Burnout 3 Takedown ported to PSP, where 3 had tons of padding and annoying filler this gets to the gameplay, there are no long annoying mandatory tutorial videos you have to sit through anymore which is fantastic as those damn near ruined the whole game in 3.
Tuesday, November 1, 2016
Gaming Purchases - November 2016
November 1st:
Today's second-hand finds.
Game Boy Advance:
Dogz 2 (game cartridge and instruction manual only)
DS:
Guitar Hero On Tour (+accessories)
PlayStation:
Checkmate
PlayStation Portable:
Daxter
Tekken Dark Resurrection
LEGO Star Wars II The Original Trilogy (Platinum)
Xbox:
Amped Freestyle Snowboarding
Need for Speed Most Wanted
Scooby-Doo! Mystery Mayhem
Splinter Cell Pandora Tomorrow
Star Wars Knights of the Old Republic II Sith Lords
Vinyl:
At The Hop (1976)
DVD:
Barbie in a Christmas Carol
Denver The Last Dinosaur - On The Golf Course - The Crocodile Hunters
King Arthur and the Knights of Justice - from Quarterback to Knight of the Round Table
My Little Pony (G3) - A Very Minty Christmas
UMD Video:
Sahara (2005)
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
November 10th:
No games today but I got some other stuff.
Second-hand:
DVD:
Transformers Prime - Season 1 - Vol. 1
Comics:
Archie
87:an Axelsson
W.I.T.C.H.
Other:
various figures
3 VHS-C Videocamera tapes (still factory sealed)
New:
DVD:
Minions
Penguins of Madagascar
The Book of Life
Tom & Jerry the Lost Dragon
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
November 15th:
No games today either but again I got some other stuff.
Second-hand:
DVD:
Hello Kitty Xmas Tales
Tekkonkinkreet
Comics/Books:
Disney Christmas Special
Disney Princess Christmas Album
Disney Princess Christmas Album
other various
Other:
Christmas Rat/Mouse Girl
New:
LEGO:
Nexo Knights magazine + bonus set Kid Clay
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
November 17th:
No games today either but today I at least got something gaming related in my second-hand finds.
Second-hand:
PC hardware:
USB stereo speakers
DVD:
Disney Princess - Enchanted Tales: Follow Your Dreams
Epic
Hot Wheels Accelerators: Breaking Point
Who Framed Roger Rabbit - Special Edition
Other:
Mega Bloks 91014 World of Warcraft Goblin Zeppelin Ambush
Minnie Mouse pink racing car
New:
LEGO:
Ninjago magazine + bonus set Ronin with Aeroblades
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November 24th:
Today's second hand finds include a couple of Wii U games of all things! I don't even have a Wii U!! THIS IS CRAZY!!!
Wii U:
Disney Infinity
Skylanders Giants
DVD:
Ah! My Goddess
Dune
Cube 2 Hypercube
Mad Max Fury Road
Star Wars Episode I The Phantom Menace
Stephen King's The Mangler
Books:
Cinderella's Magic Adventure
Picture Facts Future World
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
November 29th:
Today's GameStop finds include some DS games I will use the covers from to house rogue GBA cartridges.
DS:
C.O.P. The Recruit
FIFA 08
High School Musical 3: Senior Year
PlayStation Portable:
Burnout Legends
EyePet Adventures
Mega Minis Volume 2
PlayStation 3:
Earth Defense Force 2025
Books:
Lilo & Stitch: Härligt stökigt!
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Today's second-hand finds.
Game Boy Advance:
Dogz 2 (game cartridge and instruction manual only)
DS:
Guitar Hero On Tour (+accessories)
PlayStation:
Checkmate
PlayStation Portable:
Daxter
Tekken Dark Resurrection
LEGO Star Wars II The Original Trilogy (Platinum)
Xbox:
Amped Freestyle Snowboarding
Need for Speed Most Wanted
Scooby-Doo! Mystery Mayhem
Splinter Cell Pandora Tomorrow
Star Wars Knights of the Old Republic II Sith Lords
Vinyl:
At The Hop (1976)
DVD:
Barbie in a Christmas Carol
Denver The Last Dinosaur - On The Golf Course - The Crocodile Hunters
King Arthur and the Knights of Justice - from Quarterback to Knight of the Round Table
My Little Pony (G3) - A Very Minty Christmas
UMD Video:
Sahara (2005)
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
November 10th:
No games today but I got some other stuff.
Second-hand:
DVD:
Transformers Prime - Season 1 - Vol. 1
Comics:
Archie
87:an Axelsson
W.I.T.C.H.
Other:
various figures
3 VHS-C Videocamera tapes (still factory sealed)
New:
DVD:
Minions
Penguins of Madagascar
The Book of Life
Tom & Jerry the Lost Dragon
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
November 15th:
No games today either but again I got some other stuff.
Second-hand:
DVD:
Hello Kitty Xmas Tales
Tekkonkinkreet
Comics/Books:
Disney Christmas Special
Disney Princess Christmas Album
Disney Princess Christmas Album
other various
Other:
Christmas Rat/Mouse Girl
New:
LEGO:
Nexo Knights magazine + bonus set Kid Clay
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
November 17th:
No games today either but today I at least got something gaming related in my second-hand finds.
Second-hand:
PC hardware:
USB stereo speakers
DVD:
Disney Princess - Enchanted Tales: Follow Your Dreams
Epic
Hot Wheels Accelerators: Breaking Point
Who Framed Roger Rabbit - Special Edition
Other:
Mega Bloks 91014 World of Warcraft Goblin Zeppelin Ambush
Minnie Mouse pink racing car
New:
LEGO:
Ninjago magazine + bonus set Ronin with Aeroblades
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
November 24th:
Today's second hand finds include a couple of Wii U games of all things! I don't even have a Wii U!! THIS IS CRAZY!!!
Wii U:
Disney Infinity
Skylanders Giants
DVD:
Ah! My Goddess
Dune
Cube 2 Hypercube
Mad Max Fury Road
Star Wars Episode I The Phantom Menace
Stephen King's The Mangler
Books:
Cinderella's Magic Adventure
Picture Facts Future World
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
November 29th:
Today's GameStop finds include some DS games I will use the covers from to house rogue GBA cartridges.
DS:
C.O.P. The Recruit
FIFA 08
High School Musical 3: Senior Year
PlayStation Portable:
Burnout Legends
EyePet Adventures
Mega Minis Volume 2
PlayStation 3:
Earth Defense Force 2025
Books:
Lilo & Stitch: Härligt stökigt!
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Tuesday, October 18, 2016
Now Playing - Oktober 2016
Haven't played much this month, just sporadic short bursts of gameplay in random games, some new, some old.
SoulCalibur IV (Xbox 360)
Finally decided to get this game. Have to say I'm thoroughly disappointed. It lacks pretty much every single thing that made the previous games so great. There's an almost complete lack of story more and locked away fundamental content you have to pay extra for that for example the vastly superior SoulCalibur III on PS2 had in it are a couple of top reasons why this was so awful, also the controls are a lot more sluggish and unresponsive and the animations more jerky and don't transition anywhere near as well as they did in previous instalments, and it's technically ugly too, every SoulCalibur before this looked more visually impressive, I'd say even Soul Blade on PlayStation was better looking, at least from a design point of view and how well it managed to push the hardware it was on because it still holds up well today and it a lot more fun than this game is, also Yoda fucking sucks and the whole Star Wars thing in this game is a fucking joke that should never have been told, this is worse than SoulCalibur II's stupid bonus characters bullshit with the more shallow than a cardboard cutout lack-of-character Link from The Legend of Zelda for the GameCube version, the painfully unfitting and forced inclusion of one of Tekken's worst characters Heihachi Mishima for the PS2 version and a very lacking rendition of a less than optimal version of the otherwise badass comic book character Spawn for the Xbox version, no really, there's a medieval Spawn they could've used that would've fit the game perfectly and been a fucking blast to play as, such a waste, still it was a better game in all respects than this disappointing turd.
The Adventure of Willy Beamish (Mega CD/MS-DOS)
Trying out this old game for the first time. It's not bad, it's not good, it's a mixed bag. It's got one of the best intro songs I've ever heard though and I like some of the humor and characters. The Mega CD version has awful voice acting, slow loading times and choppy animations so overall the MS-DOS version is far superior with silent text based dialog, shorter loading times and smoother animations, also the MS-DOS version has far more colors and therefor better details. I like how there are a lot of funny death animations, it makes up for the fact that the game is overly cryptic with retarded logic for puzzle solving a lot of the time causing you to die without having a clue what to do to avoid it. An unbalanced game to play but still an interesting experience.
Steel Talons (Mega Drive)
Eternal Champions (Mega Drive)
Virtua Racing Deluxe (32X)
Race Drivin' (Mega Drive)
CastleVania Symphony of The Night (PlayStation)
UniRally (Super Nintendo)
SoulCalibur IV (Xbox 360)
Finally decided to get this game. Have to say I'm thoroughly disappointed. It lacks pretty much every single thing that made the previous games so great. There's an almost complete lack of story more and locked away fundamental content you have to pay extra for that for example the vastly superior SoulCalibur III on PS2 had in it are a couple of top reasons why this was so awful, also the controls are a lot more sluggish and unresponsive and the animations more jerky and don't transition anywhere near as well as they did in previous instalments, and it's technically ugly too, every SoulCalibur before this looked more visually impressive, I'd say even Soul Blade on PlayStation was better looking, at least from a design point of view and how well it managed to push the hardware it was on because it still holds up well today and it a lot more fun than this game is, also Yoda fucking sucks and the whole Star Wars thing in this game is a fucking joke that should never have been told, this is worse than SoulCalibur II's stupid bonus characters bullshit with the more shallow than a cardboard cutout lack-of-character Link from The Legend of Zelda for the GameCube version, the painfully unfitting and forced inclusion of one of Tekken's worst characters Heihachi Mishima for the PS2 version and a very lacking rendition of a less than optimal version of the otherwise badass comic book character Spawn for the Xbox version, no really, there's a medieval Spawn they could've used that would've fit the game perfectly and been a fucking blast to play as, such a waste, still it was a better game in all respects than this disappointing turd.
The Adventure of Willy Beamish (Mega CD/MS-DOS)
Trying out this old game for the first time. It's not bad, it's not good, it's a mixed bag. It's got one of the best intro songs I've ever heard though and I like some of the humor and characters. The Mega CD version has awful voice acting, slow loading times and choppy animations so overall the MS-DOS version is far superior with silent text based dialog, shorter loading times and smoother animations, also the MS-DOS version has far more colors and therefor better details. I like how there are a lot of funny death animations, it makes up for the fact that the game is overly cryptic with retarded logic for puzzle solving a lot of the time causing you to die without having a clue what to do to avoid it. An unbalanced game to play but still an interesting experience.
Steel Talons (Mega Drive)
Eternal Champions (Mega Drive)
Virtua Racing Deluxe (32X)
Race Drivin' (Mega Drive)
CastleVania Symphony of The Night (PlayStation)
UniRally (Super Nintendo)
Wednesday, October 5, 2016
Gaming Purchases - Oktober 2016
Oktober 4th:
Today's second-hand finds.
CD:
Tintin - Prisoners of the Sun
DVD:
Monster High - Ghouls Rule (UPDATE: I enjoyed this movie, even watched it twice, once in original english and then also the dubbed version, I'd say both were fairly equal in quality, some voices were better in original english while others were improved in the dub)
Other:
LEGO, one smaller non-LEGO plastic container containing a smaller Star Wars set with a laser cannon, a couple of droids and the instruction manual (the two clone troopers and some other minor parts were missing) and the other being a larger LEGO bucket containing more basic bricks and other various random mixture of pieces
A fairly large figure of a fat pig woman wearing a bikini while cooking and cleaning
I also ordered some games online that should arrive in a couple of days (UPDATE: They arrived on the 6th as predicted).
PlayStation Portable:
Need for Speed Underground Rivals (UPDATE: not the original release as the store suggested but the ugly PSP Essentials version, sadly)
PlayStation 3:
Armored Core V (already own this on Xbox 360 but I always try to get as many different versions of games as possible when found cheap enough)
Disney Infinity 3.0 - Star Wars Starter Pack (UPDATE: can't play it because it requires a firmware update that I am not willing to ruin my PS3 with any further, it's bad enough as it is already thanks to Sony, it doesn't need to be a lot worse)
Xbox 360:
MorphX (already own this, decided to get this second copy as a backup because it was cheap enough)
SoulCalibur IV (UPDATE: not the original release as the site suggested but the ugly Classics version, sadly, also this game sucked for more reasons than I feel like listing right now, but an almost complete lack of story more and locked away fundamental content you have to pay extra for that for example the vastly superior SoulCalibur III on PS2 had in it are a couple of top reasons why this was so awful, also the controls are a lot more sluggish and unresponsive and the animations more jerky and don't transition anywhere near as well as they did in previous instalments, and it's technically ugly too, every SoulCalibur before this looked more visually impressive, I'd say even Soul Blade on PlayStation was better looking, at least from a design point of view and how well it managed to push the hardware it was on because it still holds up well today and it a lot more fun than this game is, also Yoda fucking sucks and the whole Star Wars thing in this game is a fucking joke that should never have been told, this is worse than SoulCalibur II's stupid bonus characters bullshit with the more shallow than a cardboard cutout lack-of-character Link from The Legend of Zelda for the GameCube version, the painfully unfitting and forced inclusion of one of Tekken's worst characters Heihachi Mishima for the PS2 version and a very lacking rendition of a less than optimal version of the otherwise badass comic book character Spawn for the Xbox version, no really, there's a medieval Spawn they could've used that would've fit the game perfectly and been a fucking blast to play as, such a waste, still it was a better game in all respects than this disappointing turd)
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Oktober 16th:
Today I bought a whole bunch of HotWheels and a DVD.
DVD:
The Swan Princess Christmas
HotWheels:
Batman - The Dark Knight - Batmobile
Batman - Batman Arkham Knight - Batmobile
Batman - The Bat
HW City Works - Time Attaxi
HW Daredevils - Cruise Bruiser
HW Exotics - Lotus Esprit S1
HW Screen Time - Back to the Future - Time Machine - Hover Mode
HW Speed Graphics - Ford GT
Muscle Mania - Camaro Z28
Sky Show - Cloud Cutter
Sky Show - Jet Threat 4.0
Street Beasts - Bad Ratitude
Street Beasts - Vampyra
Super Chromes - Two Timer
Then and Now - '90 Acura NSX
Today's second-hand finds.
CD:
Tintin - Prisoners of the Sun
DVD:
Monster High - Ghouls Rule (UPDATE: I enjoyed this movie, even watched it twice, once in original english and then also the dubbed version, I'd say both were fairly equal in quality, some voices were better in original english while others were improved in the dub)
Other:
LEGO, one smaller non-LEGO plastic container containing a smaller Star Wars set with a laser cannon, a couple of droids and the instruction manual (the two clone troopers and some other minor parts were missing) and the other being a larger LEGO bucket containing more basic bricks and other various random mixture of pieces
A fairly large figure of a fat pig woman wearing a bikini while cooking and cleaning
I also ordered some games online that should arrive in a couple of days (UPDATE: They arrived on the 6th as predicted).
PlayStation Portable:
Need for Speed Underground Rivals (UPDATE: not the original release as the store suggested but the ugly PSP Essentials version, sadly)
PlayStation 3:
Armored Core V (already own this on Xbox 360 but I always try to get as many different versions of games as possible when found cheap enough)
Disney Infinity 3.0 - Star Wars Starter Pack (UPDATE: can't play it because it requires a firmware update that I am not willing to ruin my PS3 with any further, it's bad enough as it is already thanks to Sony, it doesn't need to be a lot worse)
Xbox 360:
MorphX (already own this, decided to get this second copy as a backup because it was cheap enough)
SoulCalibur IV (UPDATE: not the original release as the site suggested but the ugly Classics version, sadly, also this game sucked for more reasons than I feel like listing right now, but an almost complete lack of story more and locked away fundamental content you have to pay extra for that for example the vastly superior SoulCalibur III on PS2 had in it are a couple of top reasons why this was so awful, also the controls are a lot more sluggish and unresponsive and the animations more jerky and don't transition anywhere near as well as they did in previous instalments, and it's technically ugly too, every SoulCalibur before this looked more visually impressive, I'd say even Soul Blade on PlayStation was better looking, at least from a design point of view and how well it managed to push the hardware it was on because it still holds up well today and it a lot more fun than this game is, also Yoda fucking sucks and the whole Star Wars thing in this game is a fucking joke that should never have been told, this is worse than SoulCalibur II's stupid bonus characters bullshit with the more shallow than a cardboard cutout lack-of-character Link from The Legend of Zelda for the GameCube version, the painfully unfitting and forced inclusion of one of Tekken's worst characters Heihachi Mishima for the PS2 version and a very lacking rendition of a less than optimal version of the otherwise badass comic book character Spawn for the Xbox version, no really, there's a medieval Spawn they could've used that would've fit the game perfectly and been a fucking blast to play as, such a waste, still it was a better game in all respects than this disappointing turd)
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Oktober 16th:
Today I bought a whole bunch of HotWheels and a DVD.
DVD:
The Swan Princess Christmas
HotWheels:
Batman - The Dark Knight - Batmobile
Batman - Batman Arkham Knight - Batmobile
Batman - The Bat
HW City Works - Time Attaxi
HW Daredevils - Cruise Bruiser
HW Exotics - Lotus Esprit S1
HW Screen Time - Back to the Future - Time Machine - Hover Mode
HW Speed Graphics - Ford GT
Muscle Mania - Camaro Z28
Sky Show - Cloud Cutter
Sky Show - Jet Threat 4.0
Street Beasts - Bad Ratitude
Street Beasts - Vampyra
Super Chromes - Two Timer
Then and Now - '90 Acura NSX
Friday, September 16, 2016
Now Playing - September 2016
These are the games I've been playing this month.
Tomb Raider The Prophecy (Game Boy Advance)
I'm stuck on a larger level with lots of insta-death traps without any checkpoints. It's a good game but I'd love to have save points in the levels.
Need for Speed Underground (Game Boy Advance)
This is one of those games that are kind of impressive but doesn't quite do anything good enough as a game to be good regardless of what they managed to pull of on a technical level. The Underground series simply needs more processing power to pull off what it needs to do what it does. The game is mostly intact on a technical level, you have many cars and tons of customization options but the style and feeling of the bigger titles is all missing.
Need for Speed Underground (PC)
This PC really sucks, even my old PC from 2001 could handle this game rather well when the graphics were toned down, now I can't get it to work on a playable level even with every option on the lowest setting. Fuck computers, I'm gonna try to get hold of the PS2 version instead. I'd play it on XBox but since my Xbox is broken and Microsoft never kept their promise to keep porting original Xbox titles to Xbox 360 I am left with no way to play that version. So the only playable version of NFSU I have is the GBA version.. yeah, I need to get hold of the PS2 version, simple as that.
SuperCar Challenge (PlayStation 3)
New game, it's pretty good. Kinda of like the PS3 equivalent of Race PRO on Xbox 360.
BioShock Infinite (PlayStation 3)
Glitchy, has frozen on me, enemies have broken AI and Elizabeth gets stuck because her AI is also broken. Beside those problems it's an okay game, a bit repetitive already but maybe it gets better? I haven't decided if I keep playing to find out or not yet. It's failed to capture any interest so far with it's convoluted story and piss poor story telling so I've only really kept playing to see if it ever gets interesting, so far it has not.
Buzz! Music Quiz (PlayStation 2)
I finally got hold of Buzz! controllers so I could try out some Buzz! games I got a couple years back. They work. Not much else to say really, the Buzz! games were very basic and feel like if they combined all of them it would be almost the content of one low budget game, but separately they are way too single tracked and the questions get repetitive and boring in just a couple of minutes. The different play modes do little to change anything as the questions are still the same, you just play for the points on a few different ways and it simply isn't enough to keep your interest up.
Buzz! Sports Quiz (PlayStation 2)
A downgrade from the Music Quiz game, it barely even tries to stay on the same already generic level. Some of the unique animations and cutscenes found in Music Quiz have no equivalent here, it's just gone, and the fact that these are sports questions rather than something much more generally enjoyed by all like music is means even less interest can be kept up with these questions. Though it should be noted they did add more sports than just two categories unlike the music game which only had old and new music as the two options you could pick from, but they mix all the sports questions so you can't actually pick categories at all this time around so it still ends up being worse overall.
Buzz! Junior Jungle Party (PlayStation 2)
Overly simplistic minigames that unlike most other minigame collection games don't even try to make the minigames any good. very lazy, simple and boring, and there aren't even many minigames, if you play through the basic set of them once you're literally experienced everything this game has to offer, it's got less content that the simplest of mobile phone app games. Even the three Buzz! games I have combined doesn't add up to anything I'd consider worth paying for, they're just not very good in any respects. They're also not generally interesting to a casual crowd as they have this kind of designed style to them where you'd pretty much have to be a gamer to enjoy their unique look and feel, they're not like normal TV shows with a human host but instead all caricature and weird with their own over the top cheesy humor. I liked some of it, but most of it fell flat and the Junior Jungle party game was even worse and felt like it was just like a show for very young children, think Teletubbies and something, and even then the games had such a mixed balance of difficulty it felt like some a stillborn baby could win while others you'd have to become a world champion to even come close to getting the full score, not because they had brilliantly designed challenges but because they were random and luck based and only a world champion in patients with shitty games could ever stick with it long enough to get a good, let alone full, score. I'd say avoid these games unless you're very interested in odd games and can find them very very cheap. I found them relatively cheap but honestly I wish I would've paid less as I didn't feel I got my money's worth.
Midway Arcade Origins (PlayStation 3)
Sadly a rather poor collection of old arcade games. It doesn't have many games to play and there's nothing further to unlock. The few games they included are very basic conversions with little to nothing to enhance them and several of them even have glitches. The control options are abysmal and settings for each games are as basic as they ever were. Some of the games included are alright but honestly most of them have far superior home console ports and this is not a list of arcade games I consider to be better in their original arcade versions at all, and that goes double for the titles that use a multi-screen display as that doesn't translate well at all to being crammed into one screen with no further customization options. They did add a couple of basic filters though, one that smoothens the pixels with basic linear filtering a-la-Nintendo-64 and another that smoothes everything so it kind of looks cartoony but as a result also filters out all minor pixel details making everything look even simpler and uglier than before.
Metal Gear Solid V Ground Zeroes (PlayStation 3)
Originally I played this a year ago on the Xbox 360 and was left with some mixed feelings. On the PS3 it's pretty much the same but I had a bit more fun this time around as I knew where to go, what to do and how to do it, at least as far as the first main mission and a couple of the additional side missions go, that's about as far as I got on the Xbox 360 as I only borrowed it and I only ever played a couple of more missions after the first main one and had to return it shortly thereafter.
This time however it's my own copy so I can tackle as much of it as I please, if I decide to do so that is, I kind of want to but I don't know how long it'll take before I get bored of only having one small area to play in. For those who aren't up to speed with this game yet it's kind of free roaming in this small enemy base, it has a few different areas like a prison camp and an admin building, but that's about it, you can use vehicles like jeeps, trucks and tanks and you can call in helicopters to pick up prisoners and stuff so there's some variety to the gameplay over Metal Gear Solid 4 for example where all you ever did was shoot and stealth.
The visuals are only slightly better than MGS4, the biggest upgrade being the textures which were sub-PS2 quality in MGS4 are now some of the most detailed of the generation, the lighting is also improved, so is the polygonal detail.
So overall it looks better, no doubt about it, but there are a lot of things missing, like the cool camouflage nanotech suit Snake had in MGS4 and the sci-fi stuff like the many different types of robotic enemies, now you're just fighting regular soldiers, sometimes they drive the vehicles mentioned but they're easily taken out and it offers only little variety.
The controls are different than in earlier games as well and the menu systems have all gotten a complete overhaul. Then there's the regenerative health and limited amount of weapons and items you can carry unlike the previous games where you had to find rations to heal yourself with and unlimited slots of every weapon and item you could find. I think these changes are okay, not wildly better or wildly worse, just different and in the long run more practical if a bit lazy and limiting.
The urgency of having to manage health when you're hurt is completely gone so it gets a bit lazy when you just cover behind something and stay out of enemy fire for a moment, healing back to normal as if nothing happened, and the limited amount of stuff you can carry makes the gameplay options very limited, especially compared to all the older titles where every situation could be tackled in every way the game allowed all the time leaving how the game played up to you. The way this plays out as a result is a lot more controlled with limitations than open and free with options.
Then we have the change of Snake's voice, they have a new voice actor that sounds really uninterested and disconnected and it's a shame as Snake's voice fit the character well in the previous games, this new voice just sucks, not just for Snake's voice but in general, it's sadly just not a job well done at all by the new voice actor. For what little story there is and how few lines Snake has because of it it's endurable though, but if this would've been like other MGS titles with tons of story and Snake having long conversations with other characters it would've been a deal breaker.
Brink (PlayStation 3)
A shallow FPS with heavily limited character customization. You can make a generic guy with minor alterations to his looks and take on basic typical FPS missions in a tacked on singleplayer campaign. Ugly visuals that update slowly from low to high detail gives the game a perpetual N64 look unless you stand still and wait for it to load how things actually look, not that the designs or technical visuals are much better even when eventually rendered at highest quality. I paid the lowest price possible for it but even with that in mind I only barely feel it was worth it.
Binary Domain (PlayStation 3)
I've played the demo on Xbox 360 and didn't care much for it, but the full version is a whole other story, literally, the story and characters when you've been with them from the beginning and know the context is a world of difference. It's a fun game with entertaining action, cool enemy and especially boss designs, I like the story and characters as unoriginal as they are because a lot of the stuff this game borrows from is great, like I can draw many strong parallels to Final Fantasy VII, and that's never a bad thing, hell this game is a fuckton closer to a proper remake/prequel/sequel/spinoff of FF7 than any of the atrocious garbage SquareEnix's been diarrheaing out onto the market for years desperately trying to milk the good name without the slightest idea how to do it right and completely lacking all the necessary skill and much needed respect for the source material to even randomly by dumb luck happen pull it off.
This game isn't perfect though ,far from it, the framerate is bad, the slowdown is extreme at times and there's screen tearing as well, the infamous triple combo, and the aiming is either too fast or too slow because the enemies later in the game are too fast to keep up with while aiming with the speed that works when you need precision aim, the speed is just balanced way wrong, and finally the controls have some buttons that are context sensitive but also function as fundamental actions like sprinting, making it impossible to control certain situations as the game automatically determined what context is top priority meaning you can try to run for cover only to hug a wall and slowly sneak along it while being shot to death, I can't tell how often that exact thing happened and it was more frustrating every time.
The game looks great though, with super high detail all over the place and I like the humor sometimes and the dialog system where you can answer questions and give orders etc. is a nice addition that adds some depth to the gameplay, it's just too bad it doesn't work as well as it should as for example sarcasm is unthinkable unless the game decides it is, I had several occasions where the character would answer the opposite of what I wanted because the question was asked in such a way that the answers I had to pick from weren't clearly defined enough what the actual answer dialog would be, you'd have options like Yes and No and then the answer was a full sentence that may be deliver with sarcasm making the answer inverted and pissing off the comrade making them dislike me instead of having increased trust in me. Speaking of which, there's a trust system in the game where your teammates will either trust you or not depending on your dialog answers and how you perform in battle, and the less they trust you the more disobedient they'll be in battle, not listening to your orders or helping you when you need to be revived and such. Good concept but the less than optimal execution made it less than it should've been.
I want the Xbox 360 version because on Xbox 360 I have a microphone headset I can use for the voice commands the game has, it's basically an alternate way to answer the questions in game. I doubt it works very well but I still want to try it out some day and because I have no bluetooth headset for PS3 I can't do it in this version.
Tomb Raider The Prophecy (Game Boy Advance)
I'm stuck on a larger level with lots of insta-death traps without any checkpoints. It's a good game but I'd love to have save points in the levels.
Need for Speed Underground (Game Boy Advance)
This is one of those games that are kind of impressive but doesn't quite do anything good enough as a game to be good regardless of what they managed to pull of on a technical level. The Underground series simply needs more processing power to pull off what it needs to do what it does. The game is mostly intact on a technical level, you have many cars and tons of customization options but the style and feeling of the bigger titles is all missing.
Need for Speed Underground (PC)
This PC really sucks, even my old PC from 2001 could handle this game rather well when the graphics were toned down, now I can't get it to work on a playable level even with every option on the lowest setting. Fuck computers, I'm gonna try to get hold of the PS2 version instead. I'd play it on XBox but since my Xbox is broken and Microsoft never kept their promise to keep porting original Xbox titles to Xbox 360 I am left with no way to play that version. So the only playable version of NFSU I have is the GBA version.. yeah, I need to get hold of the PS2 version, simple as that.
SuperCar Challenge (PlayStation 3)
New game, it's pretty good. Kinda of like the PS3 equivalent of Race PRO on Xbox 360.
BioShock Infinite (PlayStation 3)
Glitchy, has frozen on me, enemies have broken AI and Elizabeth gets stuck because her AI is also broken. Beside those problems it's an okay game, a bit repetitive already but maybe it gets better? I haven't decided if I keep playing to find out or not yet. It's failed to capture any interest so far with it's convoluted story and piss poor story telling so I've only really kept playing to see if it ever gets interesting, so far it has not.
Buzz! Music Quiz (PlayStation 2)
I finally got hold of Buzz! controllers so I could try out some Buzz! games I got a couple years back. They work. Not much else to say really, the Buzz! games were very basic and feel like if they combined all of them it would be almost the content of one low budget game, but separately they are way too single tracked and the questions get repetitive and boring in just a couple of minutes. The different play modes do little to change anything as the questions are still the same, you just play for the points on a few different ways and it simply isn't enough to keep your interest up.
Buzz! Sports Quiz (PlayStation 2)
A downgrade from the Music Quiz game, it barely even tries to stay on the same already generic level. Some of the unique animations and cutscenes found in Music Quiz have no equivalent here, it's just gone, and the fact that these are sports questions rather than something much more generally enjoyed by all like music is means even less interest can be kept up with these questions. Though it should be noted they did add more sports than just two categories unlike the music game which only had old and new music as the two options you could pick from, but they mix all the sports questions so you can't actually pick categories at all this time around so it still ends up being worse overall.
Buzz! Junior Jungle Party (PlayStation 2)
Overly simplistic minigames that unlike most other minigame collection games don't even try to make the minigames any good. very lazy, simple and boring, and there aren't even many minigames, if you play through the basic set of them once you're literally experienced everything this game has to offer, it's got less content that the simplest of mobile phone app games. Even the three Buzz! games I have combined doesn't add up to anything I'd consider worth paying for, they're just not very good in any respects. They're also not generally interesting to a casual crowd as they have this kind of designed style to them where you'd pretty much have to be a gamer to enjoy their unique look and feel, they're not like normal TV shows with a human host but instead all caricature and weird with their own over the top cheesy humor. I liked some of it, but most of it fell flat and the Junior Jungle party game was even worse and felt like it was just like a show for very young children, think Teletubbies and something, and even then the games had such a mixed balance of difficulty it felt like some a stillborn baby could win while others you'd have to become a world champion to even come close to getting the full score, not because they had brilliantly designed challenges but because they were random and luck based and only a world champion in patients with shitty games could ever stick with it long enough to get a good, let alone full, score. I'd say avoid these games unless you're very interested in odd games and can find them very very cheap. I found them relatively cheap but honestly I wish I would've paid less as I didn't feel I got my money's worth.
Midway Arcade Origins (PlayStation 3)
Sadly a rather poor collection of old arcade games. It doesn't have many games to play and there's nothing further to unlock. The few games they included are very basic conversions with little to nothing to enhance them and several of them even have glitches. The control options are abysmal and settings for each games are as basic as they ever were. Some of the games included are alright but honestly most of them have far superior home console ports and this is not a list of arcade games I consider to be better in their original arcade versions at all, and that goes double for the titles that use a multi-screen display as that doesn't translate well at all to being crammed into one screen with no further customization options. They did add a couple of basic filters though, one that smoothens the pixels with basic linear filtering a-la-Nintendo-64 and another that smoothes everything so it kind of looks cartoony but as a result also filters out all minor pixel details making everything look even simpler and uglier than before.
Metal Gear Solid V Ground Zeroes (PlayStation 3)
Originally I played this a year ago on the Xbox 360 and was left with some mixed feelings. On the PS3 it's pretty much the same but I had a bit more fun this time around as I knew where to go, what to do and how to do it, at least as far as the first main mission and a couple of the additional side missions go, that's about as far as I got on the Xbox 360 as I only borrowed it and I only ever played a couple of more missions after the first main one and had to return it shortly thereafter.
This time however it's my own copy so I can tackle as much of it as I please, if I decide to do so that is, I kind of want to but I don't know how long it'll take before I get bored of only having one small area to play in. For those who aren't up to speed with this game yet it's kind of free roaming in this small enemy base, it has a few different areas like a prison camp and an admin building, but that's about it, you can use vehicles like jeeps, trucks and tanks and you can call in helicopters to pick up prisoners and stuff so there's some variety to the gameplay over Metal Gear Solid 4 for example where all you ever did was shoot and stealth.
The visuals are only slightly better than MGS4, the biggest upgrade being the textures which were sub-PS2 quality in MGS4 are now some of the most detailed of the generation, the lighting is also improved, so is the polygonal detail.
So overall it looks better, no doubt about it, but there are a lot of things missing, like the cool camouflage nanotech suit Snake had in MGS4 and the sci-fi stuff like the many different types of robotic enemies, now you're just fighting regular soldiers, sometimes they drive the vehicles mentioned but they're easily taken out and it offers only little variety.
The controls are different than in earlier games as well and the menu systems have all gotten a complete overhaul. Then there's the regenerative health and limited amount of weapons and items you can carry unlike the previous games where you had to find rations to heal yourself with and unlimited slots of every weapon and item you could find. I think these changes are okay, not wildly better or wildly worse, just different and in the long run more practical if a bit lazy and limiting.
The urgency of having to manage health when you're hurt is completely gone so it gets a bit lazy when you just cover behind something and stay out of enemy fire for a moment, healing back to normal as if nothing happened, and the limited amount of stuff you can carry makes the gameplay options very limited, especially compared to all the older titles where every situation could be tackled in every way the game allowed all the time leaving how the game played up to you. The way this plays out as a result is a lot more controlled with limitations than open and free with options.
Then we have the change of Snake's voice, they have a new voice actor that sounds really uninterested and disconnected and it's a shame as Snake's voice fit the character well in the previous games, this new voice just sucks, not just for Snake's voice but in general, it's sadly just not a job well done at all by the new voice actor. For what little story there is and how few lines Snake has because of it it's endurable though, but if this would've been like other MGS titles with tons of story and Snake having long conversations with other characters it would've been a deal breaker.
Brink (PlayStation 3)
A shallow FPS with heavily limited character customization. You can make a generic guy with minor alterations to his looks and take on basic typical FPS missions in a tacked on singleplayer campaign. Ugly visuals that update slowly from low to high detail gives the game a perpetual N64 look unless you stand still and wait for it to load how things actually look, not that the designs or technical visuals are much better even when eventually rendered at highest quality. I paid the lowest price possible for it but even with that in mind I only barely feel it was worth it.
Binary Domain (PlayStation 3)
I've played the demo on Xbox 360 and didn't care much for it, but the full version is a whole other story, literally, the story and characters when you've been with them from the beginning and know the context is a world of difference. It's a fun game with entertaining action, cool enemy and especially boss designs, I like the story and characters as unoriginal as they are because a lot of the stuff this game borrows from is great, like I can draw many strong parallels to Final Fantasy VII, and that's never a bad thing, hell this game is a fuckton closer to a proper remake/prequel/sequel/spinoff of FF7 than any of the atrocious garbage SquareEnix's been diarrheaing out onto the market for years desperately trying to milk the good name without the slightest idea how to do it right and completely lacking all the necessary skill and much needed respect for the source material to even randomly by dumb luck happen pull it off.
This game isn't perfect though ,far from it, the framerate is bad, the slowdown is extreme at times and there's screen tearing as well, the infamous triple combo, and the aiming is either too fast or too slow because the enemies later in the game are too fast to keep up with while aiming with the speed that works when you need precision aim, the speed is just balanced way wrong, and finally the controls have some buttons that are context sensitive but also function as fundamental actions like sprinting, making it impossible to control certain situations as the game automatically determined what context is top priority meaning you can try to run for cover only to hug a wall and slowly sneak along it while being shot to death, I can't tell how often that exact thing happened and it was more frustrating every time.
The game looks great though, with super high detail all over the place and I like the humor sometimes and the dialog system where you can answer questions and give orders etc. is a nice addition that adds some depth to the gameplay, it's just too bad it doesn't work as well as it should as for example sarcasm is unthinkable unless the game decides it is, I had several occasions where the character would answer the opposite of what I wanted because the question was asked in such a way that the answers I had to pick from weren't clearly defined enough what the actual answer dialog would be, you'd have options like Yes and No and then the answer was a full sentence that may be deliver with sarcasm making the answer inverted and pissing off the comrade making them dislike me instead of having increased trust in me. Speaking of which, there's a trust system in the game where your teammates will either trust you or not depending on your dialog answers and how you perform in battle, and the less they trust you the more disobedient they'll be in battle, not listening to your orders or helping you when you need to be revived and such. Good concept but the less than optimal execution made it less than it should've been.
I want the Xbox 360 version because on Xbox 360 I have a microphone headset I can use for the voice commands the game has, it's basically an alternate way to answer the questions in game. I doubt it works very well but I still want to try it out some day and because I have no bluetooth headset for PS3 I can't do it in this version.
Tuesday, September 6, 2016
Gaming Purchases - September 2016
September 6th:
A trip to the local GameStop the day after my birthday resulted in some nice finds.
Xbox 360:
Fuse
I've had this on PS3 for ages but haven't even taken off the plastic wrapping of it's case yet. I'll probably end up playing this version first now as the PS3 game is tucked away somewhere in a box full of other PS3 games I got but never played as PS3 just isn't a very good console despite having all the potential in the world to outclass and outperform Xbox 360 in every conceivable way, if only Sony didn't work so hard to ruin it it could've been the only console you needed, instead they gave away the entire market to Microsoft and kept doing so until Microsoft screwed up so badly with their brand that PS4 was the only thing left to buy unless you want to go back a generation or two and pay for overpriced Nintendo garbage, and I think the sales for Wii and Wii U in later years have shown just how willing the market is to do just that.
Shadows of the Damned
I've been meaning to pick this up for a long time but it just never happened until now. Better late than never.
The Bureau XCOM Declassified
I'm not a fan of the XCOM series, I've played an older MS-DOS game in the series called UFO and it was alright if a bit boring and visually uninteresting and every newer game in the series I've tried has just been the same thing with better visuals and presentation, still too boring though. This seems to be a spinoff that set out to fix most if not all the issues I have with the series so if done right I may like it as I'm a fan of the setting in the games just not the execution.
Transformers Dark of the Moon
I recently got hold of the Wii version of this game, it didn't have robots, just vehicles, it was motion control only and the visuals were really weak, so this will probably be a lot better having robots, nice visuals and proper controls.
The Wii version came with a toy car though, this version does not, still I think this version has the Wii version beat in every other way and because I already have the Wii version and the toy car that came with it I really have nothing to complain about! Except of course how shitty these new Transformers movies are and how the series is dead to me because of them and all that, but hey, at least the games based on these new shitty movies are endlessly better than that Devastation garbage Platinum games regurgitated onto the market not long ago, fucking worthless PS2 budget bargain bin level crap.
PlayStation 3:
Binary Domain
I've played the demo on Xbox 360 and thought it was okay, I don't know how i'll be able to use the voice features in this game on a PS3 as I don't have a PS3 compatible headset with mic but I guess I can always buy the XBox 360 version to try that out some other day. For now the PS3 version was so much cheaper than the Xbox 360 version it even made up for all the shortcomings PS3 games have by default. Make no mistake though I'm buying this for Xbox 360 as soon as I find a cheap enough copy out there.
BioShock Infinite
I've heard a lot about this game so I was very reluctant at buying it, but because I got it for free this time I felt it was acceptable to at least give it a try. It froze after only a few minutes of gameplay and the overly convoluted story at the start of the game made it an extremely bad first impression, but I rebooted, installed an update for the game and replayed to the point I was and kept going, it hasn't frozen again yet and the story has become a bit more focused and less all over the place, it's still glitchy as fuck with enemies losing track of you when you're right infront of them and Elizabeth getting stuck because her AI is retarded and broken but at least it's playable and I like the variety of things you can do even if I would've strongly preferred being able to carry more than two weapons at a time. Seriously, this is a massively retarded limitation and needs to fucking stop being allowed to exist in videogames.
Brink Special Edition
I got this as cheap as is physically possible without getting it for free, so even if it sucks that's kind of okay. Actually I've looked it up and know it pretty much sucks as there aren't even female characters to play as in a game that prides itself on having customization options for the playable character.
[sarcasm]Yeah, really impressive having a whole one single character type to pick from, excuse me while I sit down as the sheer amount of options is making me lightheaded.[/sarcasm]
Metal Gear Solid V Ground Zeroes
I've played this on Xbox 360 and though it was so so, only one small area but at least you get a lot to do in that small area so it's okay, I guess, for the right price. The PS3 version was the cheaper of the two, otherwise I would've gotten the Xbox 360 version where I have my save file, obviously. I'll pick up the Xbox 360 version as soon as I can get it as cheap as I got this one.
Midway Arcade Origins
I don't know much about this. It was cheap and contains a small collection of really old arcade games.
Not exactly making use of the Blu-ray format as I imagine the disc space used for these old games can't possibly even reach double digit megabytes let alone the double digit gigabytes the disc they're on has to offer.
Saint Seiya Soldiers' Soul
I was really looking forward to this game but turns out I can't play it unless I take my PS3 online and downgrade to a newer official firmware, I'd rather just take a screwdriver and force it straight through the console than do a thing like that as the last time I did I permanently lost PS2 emulation, my Linux installed OtherOS and all my respect and trust to Sony as a company.
SuperCar Challenge
This is the first game on PS3 that when I've tried to play custom music in it it actually allowed me to do so, making this the first game on PS3 that actually takes that fundamental step in the right direction of being almost as good as all Xbox 360 games are by default as even the very worst games on Xbox 360 still all allowed me to play custom music without any objections, unlike all PS3 games I've tried doing so with until this one broke that trend, now if only there was a way to make PS3 not limit all games to PAL50 on an SDTV and to allow me to install games to the harddrive, then I wouldn't even need an Xbox 360 except for all the awesome exclusives PS3 never got and all the countless multiplats that run like ass on PS3 but run silky smooth and with a lot better anti-aliasing on Xbox 360.
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September 13th:
Today's second hand finds include but are not limited to..
PlayStation 2/PlayStation 3:
Buzz! USB Buzzers
Wii:
GoldenEye 007
CD:
Dr. Bombay - Rice & Curry
DVD:
Dennis The Menace Volume 4
Happy Tree Friends Volume 1 First Blood
Ice Age 4 Continental Drift
Figures:
2x Princess Peach (from Super Mario) with.. wait for it.. an umbrella! ACTION FEATURE IN YO FACE SUCKA BOOM SHAKALAKA RAMA LLAMA DING DONG BLAM!!!!
Yoshi (from Super Mario) with egg laying action feature (it's weirder than it sounds as after the eggs have been hatched from this big cum colored lump Yoshi's sitting on you twist a wheel and THEY GO BACK IN!)
Other:
Vinyl Records
POGs
a giant oversized novelty pencil
more figures (examples: Smurfette, Minions, Snoopy characters and Bloom from WinX Club)
other random stuff (examples: an old McDonald's Angelica Pickles in racing kart toy from 1998 and My Little Pony face masks of Twilight Sparkle, Pinkie Pie, Rarity and Rainbow Dash)
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September 27th:
Today's second hand finds include but are not limited to..
DVD:
The 3 Wise Men
WinX Club 3 Vol. 3
WinX Club 3 Vol. 5
A trip to the local GameStop the day after my birthday resulted in some nice finds.
Xbox 360:
Fuse
I've had this on PS3 for ages but haven't even taken off the plastic wrapping of it's case yet. I'll probably end up playing this version first now as the PS3 game is tucked away somewhere in a box full of other PS3 games I got but never played as PS3 just isn't a very good console despite having all the potential in the world to outclass and outperform Xbox 360 in every conceivable way, if only Sony didn't work so hard to ruin it it could've been the only console you needed, instead they gave away the entire market to Microsoft and kept doing so until Microsoft screwed up so badly with their brand that PS4 was the only thing left to buy unless you want to go back a generation or two and pay for overpriced Nintendo garbage, and I think the sales for Wii and Wii U in later years have shown just how willing the market is to do just that.
Shadows of the Damned
I've been meaning to pick this up for a long time but it just never happened until now. Better late than never.
The Bureau XCOM Declassified
I'm not a fan of the XCOM series, I've played an older MS-DOS game in the series called UFO and it was alright if a bit boring and visually uninteresting and every newer game in the series I've tried has just been the same thing with better visuals and presentation, still too boring though. This seems to be a spinoff that set out to fix most if not all the issues I have with the series so if done right I may like it as I'm a fan of the setting in the games just not the execution.
Transformers Dark of the Moon
I recently got hold of the Wii version of this game, it didn't have robots, just vehicles, it was motion control only and the visuals were really weak, so this will probably be a lot better having robots, nice visuals and proper controls.
The Wii version came with a toy car though, this version does not, still I think this version has the Wii version beat in every other way and because I already have the Wii version and the toy car that came with it I really have nothing to complain about! Except of course how shitty these new Transformers movies are and how the series is dead to me because of them and all that, but hey, at least the games based on these new shitty movies are endlessly better than that Devastation garbage Platinum games regurgitated onto the market not long ago, fucking worthless PS2 budget bargain bin level crap.
PlayStation 3:
Binary Domain
I've played the demo on Xbox 360 and thought it was okay, I don't know how i'll be able to use the voice features in this game on a PS3 as I don't have a PS3 compatible headset with mic but I guess I can always buy the XBox 360 version to try that out some other day. For now the PS3 version was so much cheaper than the Xbox 360 version it even made up for all the shortcomings PS3 games have by default. Make no mistake though I'm buying this for Xbox 360 as soon as I find a cheap enough copy out there.
BioShock Infinite
I've heard a lot about this game so I was very reluctant at buying it, but because I got it for free this time I felt it was acceptable to at least give it a try. It froze after only a few minutes of gameplay and the overly convoluted story at the start of the game made it an extremely bad first impression, but I rebooted, installed an update for the game and replayed to the point I was and kept going, it hasn't frozen again yet and the story has become a bit more focused and less all over the place, it's still glitchy as fuck with enemies losing track of you when you're right infront of them and Elizabeth getting stuck because her AI is retarded and broken but at least it's playable and I like the variety of things you can do even if I would've strongly preferred being able to carry more than two weapons at a time. Seriously, this is a massively retarded limitation and needs to fucking stop being allowed to exist in videogames.
Brink Special Edition
I got this as cheap as is physically possible without getting it for free, so even if it sucks that's kind of okay. Actually I've looked it up and know it pretty much sucks as there aren't even female characters to play as in a game that prides itself on having customization options for the playable character.
[sarcasm]Yeah, really impressive having a whole one single character type to pick from, excuse me while I sit down as the sheer amount of options is making me lightheaded.[/sarcasm]
Metal Gear Solid V Ground Zeroes
I've played this on Xbox 360 and though it was so so, only one small area but at least you get a lot to do in that small area so it's okay, I guess, for the right price. The PS3 version was the cheaper of the two, otherwise I would've gotten the Xbox 360 version where I have my save file, obviously. I'll pick up the Xbox 360 version as soon as I can get it as cheap as I got this one.
Midway Arcade Origins
I don't know much about this. It was cheap and contains a small collection of really old arcade games.
Not exactly making use of the Blu-ray format as I imagine the disc space used for these old games can't possibly even reach double digit megabytes let alone the double digit gigabytes the disc they're on has to offer.
Saint Seiya Soldiers' Soul
I was really looking forward to this game but turns out I can't play it unless I take my PS3 online and downgrade to a newer official firmware, I'd rather just take a screwdriver and force it straight through the console than do a thing like that as the last time I did I permanently lost PS2 emulation, my Linux installed OtherOS and all my respect and trust to Sony as a company.
SuperCar Challenge
This is the first game on PS3 that when I've tried to play custom music in it it actually allowed me to do so, making this the first game on PS3 that actually takes that fundamental step in the right direction of being almost as good as all Xbox 360 games are by default as even the very worst games on Xbox 360 still all allowed me to play custom music without any objections, unlike all PS3 games I've tried doing so with until this one broke that trend, now if only there was a way to make PS3 not limit all games to PAL50 on an SDTV and to allow me to install games to the harddrive, then I wouldn't even need an Xbox 360 except for all the awesome exclusives PS3 never got and all the countless multiplats that run like ass on PS3 but run silky smooth and with a lot better anti-aliasing on Xbox 360.
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September 13th:
Today's second hand finds include but are not limited to..
PlayStation 2/PlayStation 3:
Buzz! USB Buzzers
Wii:
GoldenEye 007
CD:
Dr. Bombay - Rice & Curry
DVD:
Dennis The Menace Volume 4
Happy Tree Friends Volume 1 First Blood
Ice Age 4 Continental Drift
Figures:
2x Princess Peach (from Super Mario) with.. wait for it.. an umbrella! ACTION FEATURE IN YO FACE SUCKA BOOM SHAKALAKA RAMA LLAMA DING DONG BLAM!!!!
Yoshi (from Super Mario) with egg laying action feature (it's weirder than it sounds as after the eggs have been hatched from this big cum colored lump Yoshi's sitting on you twist a wheel and THEY GO BACK IN!)
Other:
Vinyl Records
POGs
a giant oversized novelty pencil
more figures (examples: Smurfette, Minions, Snoopy characters and Bloom from WinX Club)
other random stuff (examples: an old McDonald's Angelica Pickles in racing kart toy from 1998 and My Little Pony face masks of Twilight Sparkle, Pinkie Pie, Rarity and Rainbow Dash)
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September 27th:
Today's second hand finds include but are not limited to..
DVD:
The 3 Wise Men
WinX Club 3 Vol. 3
WinX Club 3 Vol. 5
Thursday, August 11, 2016
Now Playing - Augusti 2016
These are the games I've been playing this month.
Metroid II Return of Samus (Game Boy)
After I was disappointed by the turnout of the fanmade remake (turned out it was a full on reboot, not even close to remake, literally everything was changed and tons of stuff was added that was never in the original) I wanted to play the proper Metroid II instead, so I did.
It still sucks that Nintendo after less than 24 hours filed a DMCA report against the reboot and had it taken down as it wasn't a bad game, it was actually the second best 2D Metroid I've ever played after the brilliant original Metroid II. It fades in comparison to the original Metroid II, of course, and it doesn't hold a candle to Other M either, not even close, but it's still the third best Metroid game overall and second best 2D Metroid game in existence, so it still sucks Nintendo can't even let their own fans do what Nintendon't.
Top Gear Rally (Game Boy Advance)
F22 Interceptor (Mega Drive)
FlatOut 2 (PlayStation 2)
Raceway Drag & Stock Racing (PlayStation 2)
I've completed the drag races, they were easy, but the rest of the game is so hard I canät unlock any new stuff, so it's become a catch 22, I don't wanna keep playing unless there's new stuff to play with but I can't access the new stuff unless I play a lot and get much better at what little game is offering this early on. It's a low budget game but I feel I overpaid for what little I can get out of it without putting additional hard work into it, as if the hard work to get the money to buy the game wasn't enough, and what really sucks is that the stuff you have to unlock are fundamental features of the game like other game modes it brags about on the back of the box! That stuff needs to be instantly accessible or you're not allowed to use it as a selling point! Imagine if A Sonic game with Sonic on the front bragged about how this is the greatest Sonic game ever and you then have to play through it in hard mode with a generic military personnel guy character who is the only one unlocked to play as by default before you can even use Sonic!! FUCK THAT SHIT, MAN! THAT SHIT AIN'T RIGHT!
R:Racing (PlayStation 2)
Road Rage 3 (PlayStation 2)
Test Drive Unlimited 2 (Xbox 360)
Finally got hold of the sequel to Test Drive Unlimited, which instantly became one of my favorite games of the generation many years back when I got it as a birthday gift from my best friend. So far Test Drive Unlimited 2 has been okay, I like the upgraded and added stuff but I miss the things they've changed or removed.
It has a much more realistic physics engine making it a more simulation focused racing game than the first game, the visuals are upgraded as far as realistism goes and honestly look fantastic, but it all runs at a lower framerate in general and makes controlling your vehicle at high speeds much harder than it should be, they have cars that were missing in the first game like the Bugatti Veyron and they have proper offroad races now with Range Rovers and other offroad vehicles, but they've completely removed all motorcycles from the game, something I loved dearly in the first, if it wasn't for a free DLC pack containing a whopping three bikes there'd be literally none at all in this game, which is a shame, they've added licenses you need to pass in order to race and finally they've added a lot more cut scenes with characters interacting with lots of talking.
How all these things will affect the game for you depends on if you like them or not, personally I think some things like the visuals and driving physics being different are okay but I could've taken what the first game had only more fine tuned over changing them completely into this more realistic style, and the enforced licenses you need to pass, I don't remember there being any in the first game but they really slowed down this game for me, they could've been left out entirely, I also honestly don't care for the cutscenes much at all.
Beyond the island of Hawaii they've also added another island, Ibiza, to drive on this time, so there's more places to go overall than the first game had.
The rest of TDU2 is almost exactly the same as in TDU with similar races and other type of side missions, exploring and finding stuff and all that good stuff that made the first so much fun. Overall I'd say they complement each other well but I don't think the second game replaces the first as the only one to get, the first still has enough stuff that it stands strong alongside the sequel and I'd say get hold of either one of them to see if you like the overall formula first, then if you do, get the other one and enjoy what that one brings to the overall experience, they are both great games.
I do wish they would've only improved upon the first game rather than change and ruin some things while improving only some stuff though. What I mean is, I would've liked it a lot more if the sequel was more than just another great game. It should've been better than the first, not just equally good overall but for slightly different reasons.
The police work very different in this than it did in the first, I haven't had enough time to really look into it yet but they've added some unique modes this time around that have to do with the police, I haven't made up my mind about what I think about this yet though.
The system to earn money through jumps, powersliding and near misses I feel is okay but it should've been more forgiving with what counts as a collision as driving over tiny bushes or small rocks that you don't even notice and can barely make out on screen will mercilessly end your combos no matter what, I think it should've just been bigger things that can end it like hitting street lights, trees or other cars. I was trying to get the achievement for reaching the highest combo level 10 and it took over an hour to reach it once because literally the tiniest thing would end the combo, it became nothing but frustration and when I finally did it I got no satisfaction out of it at all, I only felt like I had wasted my time, time I could've spent having fun instead.
Nascar 08 (Xbox 360)
I've always wanted a game like Nascar but because the sport doesn't exist outside of USA it's only logical there haven't been that many game release here either, so I was happy when I now finally got hold of this game, and it was a modern one too so it should be extra good! Right? Eh, not really, it's not so much a Nascar game than it is a simulation of the sport, kind of like the Tour de France games aren't great bike racing games but very focused on the Tour de France sport specifically making them really boring to anyone who'd just love to race with bikes.
So yeah, this is not a game for racing fans but a game for Nascar enthusiasts specifically. It does offer some stuff for racing game fans as well but it's very clear where the focus is. The controls are the biggest problem as they are very lifelike for the sport and have done nothing to bridge the gap between how they work in real life and how you as the person playing gets up use them to play the game. It's literally unplayable with the normal settings and require you to manually make your own cars and stay away from the career modes and such to just be able to play the game at all.
I was able to get some enjoyment out of it but it really works against it if all you want is to drive around and have a good time.
I haven't played it a whole lot because of this so I can't say much more than that. It looks nice and has some really nice special effects like dynamic smoke and such, you can get some fun out of it, I just haven't had time to do so yet.
Metroid Prime (GameCube)
Trying to get through this garbage. Got the power bomb and running (read: slowly walking like a broken tank because the controls are ASS!!) around all over the fucking planet looking for stuff I can blow up to reveal new locations, oh what fun it is to run (again read as before) around aimlessly basically pixel hunting for hours until you randomly find the place the game wanted you to go. All this could've been avoided had it had the necessary linearity until the game was presented enough that free roaming would've been earned and welcome, too bad Nintendo (and to a lesser degree their lapdogs at Retro Studios) wouldn't know good game design even if they literally had it themselves just a decade or two prior to when this atrocity was released.
Tomb Raider (PlayStation)
Replaying again. In the Colosseum. It's amazing how much better this game holds up than most other early 3D games, equally sad is how awful the newer games with the Tomb Raider name in the title, as unfitting as it is considering there's nothing Tomb Raider about them, are in comparison to a game that is now 20 years old. Crystal Dynamics sure love to prove their endless incompetence. Not saying the new games with the unfitting Tomb Raider in their titles aren't okay games, some are even good in their own ways, but they're about as good Tomb Raiders as the Uncharted series and the Prince of Persia games a few years back. Giving monstrously different games a title with a legacy to live up to like the one Tomb Raider should never be done and I'm not afraid to call out the bullshit as it keeps coming. Thankfully they can never ruin the original games, they lack the time travel powers needed, and I for one am endlessly happy over this fact.
Metroid II Return of Samus (Game Boy)
After I was disappointed by the turnout of the fanmade remake (turned out it was a full on reboot, not even close to remake, literally everything was changed and tons of stuff was added that was never in the original) I wanted to play the proper Metroid II instead, so I did.
It still sucks that Nintendo after less than 24 hours filed a DMCA report against the reboot and had it taken down as it wasn't a bad game, it was actually the second best 2D Metroid I've ever played after the brilliant original Metroid II. It fades in comparison to the original Metroid II, of course, and it doesn't hold a candle to Other M either, not even close, but it's still the third best Metroid game overall and second best 2D Metroid game in existence, so it still sucks Nintendo can't even let their own fans do what Nintendon't.
Top Gear Rally (Game Boy Advance)
F22 Interceptor (Mega Drive)
FlatOut 2 (PlayStation 2)
Raceway Drag & Stock Racing (PlayStation 2)
I've completed the drag races, they were easy, but the rest of the game is so hard I canät unlock any new stuff, so it's become a catch 22, I don't wanna keep playing unless there's new stuff to play with but I can't access the new stuff unless I play a lot and get much better at what little game is offering this early on. It's a low budget game but I feel I overpaid for what little I can get out of it without putting additional hard work into it, as if the hard work to get the money to buy the game wasn't enough, and what really sucks is that the stuff you have to unlock are fundamental features of the game like other game modes it brags about on the back of the box! That stuff needs to be instantly accessible or you're not allowed to use it as a selling point! Imagine if A Sonic game with Sonic on the front bragged about how this is the greatest Sonic game ever and you then have to play through it in hard mode with a generic military personnel guy character who is the only one unlocked to play as by default before you can even use Sonic!! FUCK THAT SHIT, MAN! THAT SHIT AIN'T RIGHT!
R:Racing (PlayStation 2)
Road Rage 3 (PlayStation 2)
Test Drive Unlimited 2 (Xbox 360)
Finally got hold of the sequel to Test Drive Unlimited, which instantly became one of my favorite games of the generation many years back when I got it as a birthday gift from my best friend. So far Test Drive Unlimited 2 has been okay, I like the upgraded and added stuff but I miss the things they've changed or removed.
It has a much more realistic physics engine making it a more simulation focused racing game than the first game, the visuals are upgraded as far as realistism goes and honestly look fantastic, but it all runs at a lower framerate in general and makes controlling your vehicle at high speeds much harder than it should be, they have cars that were missing in the first game like the Bugatti Veyron and they have proper offroad races now with Range Rovers and other offroad vehicles, but they've completely removed all motorcycles from the game, something I loved dearly in the first, if it wasn't for a free DLC pack containing a whopping three bikes there'd be literally none at all in this game, which is a shame, they've added licenses you need to pass in order to race and finally they've added a lot more cut scenes with characters interacting with lots of talking.
How all these things will affect the game for you depends on if you like them or not, personally I think some things like the visuals and driving physics being different are okay but I could've taken what the first game had only more fine tuned over changing them completely into this more realistic style, and the enforced licenses you need to pass, I don't remember there being any in the first game but they really slowed down this game for me, they could've been left out entirely, I also honestly don't care for the cutscenes much at all.
Beyond the island of Hawaii they've also added another island, Ibiza, to drive on this time, so there's more places to go overall than the first game had.
The rest of TDU2 is almost exactly the same as in TDU with similar races and other type of side missions, exploring and finding stuff and all that good stuff that made the first so much fun. Overall I'd say they complement each other well but I don't think the second game replaces the first as the only one to get, the first still has enough stuff that it stands strong alongside the sequel and I'd say get hold of either one of them to see if you like the overall formula first, then if you do, get the other one and enjoy what that one brings to the overall experience, they are both great games.
I do wish they would've only improved upon the first game rather than change and ruin some things while improving only some stuff though. What I mean is, I would've liked it a lot more if the sequel was more than just another great game. It should've been better than the first, not just equally good overall but for slightly different reasons.
The police work very different in this than it did in the first, I haven't had enough time to really look into it yet but they've added some unique modes this time around that have to do with the police, I haven't made up my mind about what I think about this yet though.
The system to earn money through jumps, powersliding and near misses I feel is okay but it should've been more forgiving with what counts as a collision as driving over tiny bushes or small rocks that you don't even notice and can barely make out on screen will mercilessly end your combos no matter what, I think it should've just been bigger things that can end it like hitting street lights, trees or other cars. I was trying to get the achievement for reaching the highest combo level 10 and it took over an hour to reach it once because literally the tiniest thing would end the combo, it became nothing but frustration and when I finally did it I got no satisfaction out of it at all, I only felt like I had wasted my time, time I could've spent having fun instead.
Nascar 08 (Xbox 360)
I've always wanted a game like Nascar but because the sport doesn't exist outside of USA it's only logical there haven't been that many game release here either, so I was happy when I now finally got hold of this game, and it was a modern one too so it should be extra good! Right? Eh, not really, it's not so much a Nascar game than it is a simulation of the sport, kind of like the Tour de France games aren't great bike racing games but very focused on the Tour de France sport specifically making them really boring to anyone who'd just love to race with bikes.
So yeah, this is not a game for racing fans but a game for Nascar enthusiasts specifically. It does offer some stuff for racing game fans as well but it's very clear where the focus is. The controls are the biggest problem as they are very lifelike for the sport and have done nothing to bridge the gap between how they work in real life and how you as the person playing gets up use them to play the game. It's literally unplayable with the normal settings and require you to manually make your own cars and stay away from the career modes and such to just be able to play the game at all.
I was able to get some enjoyment out of it but it really works against it if all you want is to drive around and have a good time.
I haven't played it a whole lot because of this so I can't say much more than that. It looks nice and has some really nice special effects like dynamic smoke and such, you can get some fun out of it, I just haven't had time to do so yet.
Metroid Prime (GameCube)
Trying to get through this garbage. Got the power bomb and running (read: slowly walking like a broken tank because the controls are ASS!!) around all over the fucking planet looking for stuff I can blow up to reveal new locations, oh what fun it is to run (again read as before) around aimlessly basically pixel hunting for hours until you randomly find the place the game wanted you to go. All this could've been avoided had it had the necessary linearity until the game was presented enough that free roaming would've been earned and welcome, too bad Nintendo (and to a lesser degree their lapdogs at Retro Studios) wouldn't know good game design even if they literally had it themselves just a decade or two prior to when this atrocity was released.
Tomb Raider (PlayStation)
Replaying again. In the Colosseum. It's amazing how much better this game holds up than most other early 3D games, equally sad is how awful the newer games with the Tomb Raider name in the title, as unfitting as it is considering there's nothing Tomb Raider about them, are in comparison to a game that is now 20 years old. Crystal Dynamics sure love to prove their endless incompetence. Not saying the new games with the unfitting Tomb Raider in their titles aren't okay games, some are even good in their own ways, but they're about as good Tomb Raiders as the Uncharted series and the Prince of Persia games a few years back. Giving monstrously different games a title with a legacy to live up to like the one Tomb Raider should never be done and I'm not afraid to call out the bullshit as it keeps coming. Thankfully they can never ruin the original games, they lack the time travel powers needed, and I for one am endlessly happy over this fact.
Tuesday, August 2, 2016
Gaming Purchases - Augusti 2016
Augusti 2nd:
A trip to the local GameStop.
PlayStation Portable:
GameStop PSP Unique Pack (contains a USB charger and transfer cable, screen protector and travel case)
Xbox 360:
Nascar 08
Test Drive Unlimited 2
Other:
LEGO DC Super Heroes Wonder Woman LED pocket light
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Augusti 30th:
Today's second hand finds.
Game Boy Color:
Spider-Man with plastic protective case (missing box and manual)
PC:
Need for Speed Underground (complete)
Figures:
Mario (from Super Mario) with jumping sound effect
Boo Diddley (from Super Mario) with sticking out tongue action feature
Dragon (from Shrek) with sound effects (broken sound effect and is missing her wings, sadly)
Moto Moto (from Madagascar) with sound effects
Battle Cat (from He-Man)
CD:
South Park Bigger, Longer & Uncut Movie Soundtrack
DVD:
Ralph Bakshi's Coonskin
Other:
3x TDK VHS-C video camcorder tapes
RCA composite video and audio to 3,5mm converter
2x aimable water taps for sink faucets
Comics:
multiple Buzz Lightyear comics
A trip to the local GameStop.
PlayStation Portable:
GameStop PSP Unique Pack (contains a USB charger and transfer cable, screen protector and travel case)
Xbox 360:
Nascar 08
Test Drive Unlimited 2
Other:
LEGO DC Super Heroes Wonder Woman LED pocket light
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Augusti 30th:
Today's second hand finds.
Game Boy Color:
Spider-Man with plastic protective case (missing box and manual)
PC:
Need for Speed Underground (complete)
Figures:
Mario (from Super Mario) with jumping sound effect
Boo Diddley (from Super Mario) with sticking out tongue action feature
Dragon (from Shrek) with sound effects (broken sound effect and is missing her wings, sadly)
Moto Moto (from Madagascar) with sound effects
Battle Cat (from He-Man)
CD:
South Park Bigger, Longer & Uncut Movie Soundtrack
DVD:
Ralph Bakshi's Coonskin
Other:
3x TDK VHS-C video camcorder tapes
RCA composite video and audio to 3,5mm converter
2x aimable water taps for sink faucets
Comics:
multiple Buzz Lightyear comics
Friday, July 1, 2016
Now Playing - Juli 2016
Playing some of the stuff I was playing at the end of Juni but also some of the new games I ordered.
Doom (32X)
The Ultimate Doom (the Doom 3 Resurrection of Evil version for Xbox played on Xbox 360)
Doom 3 Resurrection of Evil (Xbox, played on Xbox 360)
Quake 2 (Quake 4 Bonus Disc version for Xbox 360)
Quake 3 Revolution (PlayStation 2)
Quake 4 (Xbox 360)
I wanted to give this game a chance but damn it sucks, the framerate is atrocious, some of the worst I've seen on Xbox 360, the visuals are low res and look worse in many cases than Doom 3 and Doom 3 Resurrection of Evil do on Xbox, the gameplay is constantly interrupted by stuff having to do with the "story" and other marines that are with you, it freezes every now and then forcing me to reboot and the enemies disappear after they die so fast that I barely ever get too see what it was I was even fighting because the darkness is even worse than Doom 3 was making it hard to see anything at the best of times! Sure, some of the guns have built in flashlights but they're small and ineffective so most of the game is just fumbling around in the pitch black darkness not knowing what to do because the objectives are vague as shit and you have no map and most doors are locked making it an extremely linear experience where you mostly just run around in circles until you find the one door that can be opened now, they all the same with no indication they've been unlocked or anything either so it's really just about trial and error until you come across the right way to go. Also the turret sections are plenty and they all fucking suck. I doubt I'll be able to endure through to the end of this game, it's just wearing on me so much every minute feels like an hour. If only there was more action it could've at least kept my interest up a bit but enemies are far too few and generic, at least this early in the game, to be interesting to fight. A custom soundtrack with good music is a must, the game does not provide that for you so you have to bring your own tunes, that's fine, I have plenty on my Xbox 360 harddrive, but after how Quake 2 did everything so perfect and right it's very hard to cope with all these downgrades that Quake 4 brings to the table. Quake 2 is still one of the best games ever made and I love it to bits, this sadly is one of the worst games ever made and a terrible sequel in every sense and I wish they would've just left it in development hell for a few more years until they at least had a game that worked on fundamental levels unlike the fucking failfest this sadly turned out to be.
Ferrari Challenge Trofeo Pirelli (PS2)
Red Zone (Mega Drive)
This game is awesome, a top-down helicopter game with some on-foot missions. It's very impressive and does some really cool things to get 3D effects and such. The biggest flaw this game has remains the insane difficulty, much like Battletoads on Entertainment System it's a technical marvel and a pleasure to behold and play but you won't be able to breeze through it anytime soon. Thankfully this game, unlike Battletoads, has a password system with some nice codes for level select and stuff so it's far more lenient in that regard.
Mega Games 6 Vol. 2 (Mega Drive)
A nice collection of games containing Alien Storm, Super Thunder Blade, Super Monaco GP, Super Hang-On, Columns and World Cup Italia.
I'm mostly playing Alien Storm and Super Thunder Blade as I already have Super Monaco GP on separate cartridge and for the rest I only really like Super Hang-On and even then not that much, haven't tried World Cup Italia yet, I don't care for sports games, especially football and ice hockey they're just the worst, and I have many versions of Columns so I don't need to bother with that at all, I know exactly what it is and have played it plenty.
Alien Storm is awesome and it was worth getting this collection cartridge for that game alone, the rest are a nice and welcome bonus though.
Super Thunder Blade is a game I have other versions of as well so nothing new, I've played it plenty, but this is the first time I've played the Mega Drive original, closest I had before this was the version in Mega Drive Collection for PS2.
Jimmy White's Whirlwind Snooker (Mega Drive)
I don't care much for sports games in general, and pool, snooker, billiards and the like are no exceptions, but this is a 3D polygonal game on Mega Drive and it's made by the same guy who made the excellent Mercury games on PSP, Archer Maclean.
The Story of Thor (Mega Drive)
Beyond Oasis is a better name for it but the content remains the same. I recently played through this but now I have my very own copy and that's awesome! Didn't come cheap though, it remains one of the most expensive games on Mega Drive you can buy. I got it at a somewhat reasonable price compared to what I've seen on ebay and such places.
Top Gear Rally (Game Boy Advance)
Another good rally game for GBA alongside the excellent V-Rally 3. The graphics in this are similar to the original Need For Speed and 32-bit versions of Road Rash with scrolling 2D backgrounds at angles that make them appear as if they are 3D with textures, very nice looking. It plays well but the difficulty is up there, it's one of the harder rally games I've played. Between this, V-Rally 3 and Colin McRae Rally 2.0 and some other okay ones like GT Advance 2 Rally Racing it really makes me wonder why Sega Rally Championship turned out so bad, GBA can absolutely do good rally games and the older Sega Rally games were great so how they fucked up the GBA game so royally is beyond me at this point. Thankfully I don't ever have to play it again, I have several better racing and rally games for GBA to enjoy now so fuck you Sega Rally Championship on GBA, you suck and it was an absolute displeasure ever trying to play you. Hooray for good GBA rally games like Top Gear Rally!
Wing Commander Prophecy (Game Boy Advance)
A 3D space action flight-sim with good visuals and all. Another good game that helps prove that the GBA had a lot more to offer than just ports of old Super Nintendo games.
MTV Sports Snowboarding (PlayStation)
One of the very select few sports games I enjoy. It holds up very well. I always felt there were two good snowboarding games of that generation, this and Coolboarders 2, and of the two this is the better one by far, Coolboarders 2 is a bit more playful fun and has a nostalgic value to me more than anything, while this is an objectively superior and much more solid game.
Fade To Black (PlayStation)
This is the sequel to the classic platformer Flashback. It's not a perfect game but it's enjoyable and interesting. I succeeds with making me want to play on to see what happens next.
Stranglehold (Xbox 360)
A great third person shooter action game I go back to every now and then for a guaranteed good time. Also a good game to relieve some aggression in. It still looks fantastic, they really did a fantastic job on the technical side, it's a visual treat that set a high standard for other games to follow, maybe a little too high as not many has lived up to the same level, it's a very impressive game and with good gameplay to back up the technical and visual quality. I recommend this to all action fans out there, especially John Woo film fans and anyone who liked his movie Hard Boiled as this game is the official sequel to that movie.
Final Fantasy VII (PlayStation)
Disc 1, at Gold Saucer, got Yuffie.
Probotector (Game Boy)
Hard but awesome classic.
Super Mario Land (Game Boy)
Always fun to play through.
Bomb Jack (Game Boy)
A fun time waster.
Impact Racing (PlayStation)
Why is there no behind the car views in my game? When I look on youtube literally every video I see has at least two behind the car views to pick from beside the default bumper cam, one video had a guy even mention that you change views with the square button, but in my game there's no mention of being able to switch views in the manual for square, it just says square is the brake, which isn't correct either as square has no effect in game and braking is done by pressing down on the steering cross!
The screenshots on the back of the packaging of my game are only taken from bumper cam and no button or combination of buttons work in game to switch views.
I'm beginning to think the PAL release skipped including the behind the car views entirely. If that's the case this game will not get much play from me as it isn't particularly enjoyable to play in that view at all, which is why every video on youtube understandable has the person playing switching to a better view!
It's still somewhat playable as it is but I HATE driving in bumper cam and this game clearly wasn't made to be played that way. I can tolerate bumper cam only in some games, but this clearly has a behind the car view in every example i can find but my own copy, so why can't I just get it to work!? Ahh! Infuriating!
It still has awesome music though.
FlatOut 2 (PlayStation 2)
It was as I expected from having played the upgraded versions Ultimate Carnage on Xbox 360 and Head On on PSP. Beautiful to look at with lots of detailed destruction but virtually impossible to win a single race in due to skilled opponent AI and a driving physics engine that doesn't like you very much.
The ragdoll-launching minigames are still what I enjoy the most; driving a rocket-powered car down a ramp only to launch the driver out the front window of the car into some absurd oversized game arena like bowling or basketball just never gets old.
Raceway Drag & Stock Racing (PlayStation 2)
I couldn't test much as most stuff needs to be unlocked by playing through the championship mode, but the few races I could partake in were okay, the framerate was a bit choppy when all 16 cars were on screen at once during stock car races, but as they scattered a bit over the track after a lap or two it ran smoothly for the most part until the race was over. It reminded me of early Dreamcast games visually more so than any PS2 games from 2006.
R:Racing (PlayStation 2)
It's every bit as good as it was on Xbox last time I played it. Now I'd like to get hold of the GameCube version some day too for a complete set.
Turok Evolution (PlayStation 2)
Wow was this a mixed experience. It's kinda ugly for the most part, even for a 2002 release these are horribly dated visuals, in all honesty the older N64 Turok games look better than this.
It's pretty bland in gameplay as well, at least so far. I liked the idea of the flying sections that were a bit like Panzer Dragoon but sadly they had one hit kills whenever you touched anything, including the randomly spawning invisible walls!!
It became a test of patience as the frustration of having to reload the same sections again and again as I would just randomly die in mid air while far away from any visible objects, enemies or other dangers that could've killed me, and only sometimes I'd die in the same place, mostly it changed at random, but after countless tries and three hours later trying to get through a part of the game that otherwise would've taken less than half an hour I got past it and was back doing the normal FPS stuff again. However, later segments of the game become very long and because this game has no in-game checkpoints it's back to the beginning of the entire level every time you die, which can also happen at random for no apparent reason now just like in the flying missions which were super short and took over three hours due to this bullshit!! I'm not doing that with levels that are already long as they are without having to restart them at random intervals.
Sky Odyssey (PlayStation 2)
An adventure game in flight simulation form. It's hard and requires precise flying from the start. I've managed to get past the first level but that's it.
I love that it allows you to customize your place a bit. I'd love more options to do so but a paint job and emblem editor are nice and I appreciate it even if the emblem editor is the weakest I've ever encountered in a game and nowhere near what you can do in Rage Racer, R4 Ridge Racer Type 4 or the Armored Core series.
I'm impressed by how detailed the flying physics are, they simulate airflow in a way no other game I know does.
An interesting thing to note with this game is that while it's a very early release for the PS2 it still has a 60hz option, making this the earliest and oldest PS2 game with a 60hz option that I'm aware of.
Britney's Dance Beat (PlayStation 2)
I've always wondered what this game was like. Now I know. It's a very basic rhythm game with a Britney Spears theme. Not much more to say. I am terrible at rhythm games in general and this was one of the hardest and least forgiving ones I've ever played, which is weird as you'd think a game for Britney Spears fans would be more lenient to non-gamers, beginners and people like me with no sense of rhythm, so I couldn't get anywhere in the main Audition mode and I can safely say I'll never ever be able to unlock Britney. Yeah, the Britney pat of the game feels very tucked away as anything to do with her and fanservice of her is locked away and needs to be unlocked before you can see or use it. You'd think she and the fanservice stuff like music videos etc. would be the stuff you had unlocked by default and other characters and stuff would come later seeing as this is a product for fans of her first and a dance and rhythm game second, but it feels like the opposite is true.
Road Rage 3 (PlayStation 2)
An excellent drift racing game, easily the best in that genre that I've played. Sure, there are other racing games I love even more that has similar things in it like DT Racer, but as a game focused on this type of racing it does an excellent job at what it does and is a lot of fun to play, and successfully pulling off long consecutive drifts both up and down tight and technically challenging mountain roads feels endlessly satisfying.
It runs silky smooth and looks fairly nice too, nothing overly impressive to look at but at least it has no issues with the framerate. I just wish they could've had some proper reflections on the cars.
A fun fact to note is that this game, while originally developed and published by Atlus in Japan it was published by the infamous Phoenix Games here in Europe. As far as I know that makes for the only good game they've ever published.
The Getaway Black Monday (PlayStation 2)
Well this was a disappointment. It's uglier than the original Getaway, it has a much worse framerate, it controls worse with much worse vehicle crash physics, there's lots of glitches and I even saw hug chunks of the graphics pop in and out of existence while I was standing still so you can't blame it on loading new geometry, it was just glitchy, and some parts were just not there, you could see through the ground and nothing I did changed that, going away and coming back so the game loaded the area again changed nothing, it's just poorly made it seems.
That being said it's still an okay free roaming game with a nice big chunk of London realistically recreated in virtual form and there is still some fun to be had, the first game just did it much better is all.
Starsky & Hutch (GameCube)
A good version of the game but I prefer the GBA version a lot more. If anything this makes me appreciate the GBA version even more as it manages to do almost everything this version does but on infinitely less powerful hardware and more streamlined, this takes forever to do anything and feels drawn out and convoluted by comparison. Still, it's nice to have another GameCube game as that part of my collection is crippled by default due to GameCube not having a lot of games I want, so any game that can help fill it out a bit is most welcome.
Metro 2033 (Xbox 360)
This is literally unplayable. The forced auto walking ruins it. I've already died multiple times simply because I can't stop the character from walking over edged falling to his death and I've just started playing, it's a whole project trying to line him up to press a button because he just walks past everything! It's broken by design. I don't understand how anyone can play this. By far the worst controls in any game I've ever played spanning the last 30 years. At first I thought it may just be some really obscure glitch but i found nothing online about it and it's there with all controllers I have, no settings change this, I've tried rebooting, I've tried installing the disc, I've tried deleting all the game data and nothing i do changes it so as bad as it is I guess they wanted it that way. It's unbelievably bad yet I've read or heard nothing about this as a complaint anywhere? I don't get it. How does anyone cope with this?
He just auto walked through a wall so I skipped a whole part of the level and ended up in some completely other scene I haven't seen before. This is the glitchiest game I've played in a long time.
For "fun" (as in desperation) I went to my storage and dug out one of my old original Xbox 360 controllers, I have two and they're both broken in different ways so I got the one that at least sporadically works, and plugged it in via my old half working charge & play cable and battery pack because I thought to myself this is the only thing I haven't tried yet and it's not going to work but at least it'll be more fun trying to see how little this thing works than actually trying to play this crap with a working controller.. turns out it's the only controller I own that doesn't have the auto walking problem so I've been trying to use it to play the game for a while and I can't say I wanna change my score at all, this game even with working controls is awful with constant in-game cutscenes (if they only wanted to make a horror b-movie why did they make a game in the first place?), quick time events, glitches out the fracking wazoo (now IA characters and enemies glitch through walls as well, so it wasn't just my own character earlier who can do it, it's a feature everyone can enjoy!!), lackluster weapons, dark and unevenly detailed visuals (doom 3 on original Xbox feels like it's played out outdoors on a bright sunny day compared to this), the one thing I've liked so far was a hot prostitute looking character that walked past as I was contextually forced to sit at a table and drink alcohol while listening to some dialog I cared nothing about as she disappeared as quickly as she popped up outta nowhere. I hate how there's no good display of information, everything is hidden away so you're getting little to no tactical feedback and then there are all the little things, for example like how you can't have the pointer "compass" on screen without having everything else tucked away, you can't even run with it because the character keeps flailing his arms madly if you do so you can't look at the damn thing telling you where to go to trigger the next drawn out uninteresting in-game cutscene you're forced to sit through until the next uneventful and glitchy context sensitive event happens, or how the AI is mentally retarded and just sits in corners not doing jack shit letting you kill whole rooms of enemies on your own until you've reached the next context sensitive point where the AI finally understands that it's time to do something, like open a door because our hero is too fucking incapable of doing such demanding tasks apparently.
This game has very rapidly become a strong top contender for worst game of the previous generation + all time for me.
Metro Last Light (Xbox 360)
I couldn't take anymore of 2033 so I decided to give Last Light a go in hopes that after years making a sequel they'd at least learn to program walking or realise how awful the constant interruption of gameplay with context cutscenes were or some kind of improvements or problems fixed. But no. They did not. All the same problems are here even the auto walking makes a return making it equally as unplayable as 2033. I am gobsmacked by this developer's ineptitude.
So I've been trying to try out Last Light some more to see if a single thing has been fixed or improved over 2033 at all (spoiler: nothing has been fixed or improved, in fact some things seem even worse, more incomplete and glitchier than in the first game) I stumbled across this funny little thing.
While allowing the game to auto walk, as they both love to do against my will except with my broken controller I can't use anyway, turns out even the game itself seems to realize it's not suppose to be doing that shit as the fucking idle animations started playing while he was still walking! While walking forward he starts checking his gun and counting his bullets and stuff.
It's beyond words at this point so I'm just gonna pretend I never played either of these and never had the money I bought them with and never bought them and they don't exist at all, at least then maybe I'll be able to sleep at night after this.
I am now officially done with this shit, no more Metro for me ever.
Doom (32X)
The Ultimate Doom (the Doom 3 Resurrection of Evil version for Xbox played on Xbox 360)
Doom 3 Resurrection of Evil (Xbox, played on Xbox 360)
Quake 2 (Quake 4 Bonus Disc version for Xbox 360)
Quake 3 Revolution (PlayStation 2)
Quake 4 (Xbox 360)
I wanted to give this game a chance but damn it sucks, the framerate is atrocious, some of the worst I've seen on Xbox 360, the visuals are low res and look worse in many cases than Doom 3 and Doom 3 Resurrection of Evil do on Xbox, the gameplay is constantly interrupted by stuff having to do with the "story" and other marines that are with you, it freezes every now and then forcing me to reboot and the enemies disappear after they die so fast that I barely ever get too see what it was I was even fighting because the darkness is even worse than Doom 3 was making it hard to see anything at the best of times! Sure, some of the guns have built in flashlights but they're small and ineffective so most of the game is just fumbling around in the pitch black darkness not knowing what to do because the objectives are vague as shit and you have no map and most doors are locked making it an extremely linear experience where you mostly just run around in circles until you find the one door that can be opened now, they all the same with no indication they've been unlocked or anything either so it's really just about trial and error until you come across the right way to go. Also the turret sections are plenty and they all fucking suck. I doubt I'll be able to endure through to the end of this game, it's just wearing on me so much every minute feels like an hour. If only there was more action it could've at least kept my interest up a bit but enemies are far too few and generic, at least this early in the game, to be interesting to fight. A custom soundtrack with good music is a must, the game does not provide that for you so you have to bring your own tunes, that's fine, I have plenty on my Xbox 360 harddrive, but after how Quake 2 did everything so perfect and right it's very hard to cope with all these downgrades that Quake 4 brings to the table. Quake 2 is still one of the best games ever made and I love it to bits, this sadly is one of the worst games ever made and a terrible sequel in every sense and I wish they would've just left it in development hell for a few more years until they at least had a game that worked on fundamental levels unlike the fucking failfest this sadly turned out to be.
Ferrari Challenge Trofeo Pirelli (PS2)
Red Zone (Mega Drive)
This game is awesome, a top-down helicopter game with some on-foot missions. It's very impressive and does some really cool things to get 3D effects and such. The biggest flaw this game has remains the insane difficulty, much like Battletoads on Entertainment System it's a technical marvel and a pleasure to behold and play but you won't be able to breeze through it anytime soon. Thankfully this game, unlike Battletoads, has a password system with some nice codes for level select and stuff so it's far more lenient in that regard.
Mega Games 6 Vol. 2 (Mega Drive)
A nice collection of games containing Alien Storm, Super Thunder Blade, Super Monaco GP, Super Hang-On, Columns and World Cup Italia.
I'm mostly playing Alien Storm and Super Thunder Blade as I already have Super Monaco GP on separate cartridge and for the rest I only really like Super Hang-On and even then not that much, haven't tried World Cup Italia yet, I don't care for sports games, especially football and ice hockey they're just the worst, and I have many versions of Columns so I don't need to bother with that at all, I know exactly what it is and have played it plenty.
Alien Storm is awesome and it was worth getting this collection cartridge for that game alone, the rest are a nice and welcome bonus though.
Super Thunder Blade is a game I have other versions of as well so nothing new, I've played it plenty, but this is the first time I've played the Mega Drive original, closest I had before this was the version in Mega Drive Collection for PS2.
Jimmy White's Whirlwind Snooker (Mega Drive)
I don't care much for sports games in general, and pool, snooker, billiards and the like are no exceptions, but this is a 3D polygonal game on Mega Drive and it's made by the same guy who made the excellent Mercury games on PSP, Archer Maclean.
The Story of Thor (Mega Drive)
Beyond Oasis is a better name for it but the content remains the same. I recently played through this but now I have my very own copy and that's awesome! Didn't come cheap though, it remains one of the most expensive games on Mega Drive you can buy. I got it at a somewhat reasonable price compared to what I've seen on ebay and such places.
Top Gear Rally (Game Boy Advance)
Another good rally game for GBA alongside the excellent V-Rally 3. The graphics in this are similar to the original Need For Speed and 32-bit versions of Road Rash with scrolling 2D backgrounds at angles that make them appear as if they are 3D with textures, very nice looking. It plays well but the difficulty is up there, it's one of the harder rally games I've played. Between this, V-Rally 3 and Colin McRae Rally 2.0 and some other okay ones like GT Advance 2 Rally Racing it really makes me wonder why Sega Rally Championship turned out so bad, GBA can absolutely do good rally games and the older Sega Rally games were great so how they fucked up the GBA game so royally is beyond me at this point. Thankfully I don't ever have to play it again, I have several better racing and rally games for GBA to enjoy now so fuck you Sega Rally Championship on GBA, you suck and it was an absolute displeasure ever trying to play you. Hooray for good GBA rally games like Top Gear Rally!
Wing Commander Prophecy (Game Boy Advance)
A 3D space action flight-sim with good visuals and all. Another good game that helps prove that the GBA had a lot more to offer than just ports of old Super Nintendo games.
MTV Sports Snowboarding (PlayStation)
One of the very select few sports games I enjoy. It holds up very well. I always felt there were two good snowboarding games of that generation, this and Coolboarders 2, and of the two this is the better one by far, Coolboarders 2 is a bit more playful fun and has a nostalgic value to me more than anything, while this is an objectively superior and much more solid game.
Fade To Black (PlayStation)
This is the sequel to the classic platformer Flashback. It's not a perfect game but it's enjoyable and interesting. I succeeds with making me want to play on to see what happens next.
Stranglehold (Xbox 360)
A great third person shooter action game I go back to every now and then for a guaranteed good time. Also a good game to relieve some aggression in. It still looks fantastic, they really did a fantastic job on the technical side, it's a visual treat that set a high standard for other games to follow, maybe a little too high as not many has lived up to the same level, it's a very impressive game and with good gameplay to back up the technical and visual quality. I recommend this to all action fans out there, especially John Woo film fans and anyone who liked his movie Hard Boiled as this game is the official sequel to that movie.
Final Fantasy VII (PlayStation)
Disc 1, at Gold Saucer, got Yuffie.
Probotector (Game Boy)
Hard but awesome classic.
Super Mario Land (Game Boy)
Always fun to play through.
Bomb Jack (Game Boy)
A fun time waster.
Impact Racing (PlayStation)
Why is there no behind the car views in my game? When I look on youtube literally every video I see has at least two behind the car views to pick from beside the default bumper cam, one video had a guy even mention that you change views with the square button, but in my game there's no mention of being able to switch views in the manual for square, it just says square is the brake, which isn't correct either as square has no effect in game and braking is done by pressing down on the steering cross!
The screenshots on the back of the packaging of my game are only taken from bumper cam and no button or combination of buttons work in game to switch views.
I'm beginning to think the PAL release skipped including the behind the car views entirely. If that's the case this game will not get much play from me as it isn't particularly enjoyable to play in that view at all, which is why every video on youtube understandable has the person playing switching to a better view!
It's still somewhat playable as it is but I HATE driving in bumper cam and this game clearly wasn't made to be played that way. I can tolerate bumper cam only in some games, but this clearly has a behind the car view in every example i can find but my own copy, so why can't I just get it to work!? Ahh! Infuriating!
It still has awesome music though.
FlatOut 2 (PlayStation 2)
It was as I expected from having played the upgraded versions Ultimate Carnage on Xbox 360 and Head On on PSP. Beautiful to look at with lots of detailed destruction but virtually impossible to win a single race in due to skilled opponent AI and a driving physics engine that doesn't like you very much.
The ragdoll-launching minigames are still what I enjoy the most; driving a rocket-powered car down a ramp only to launch the driver out the front window of the car into some absurd oversized game arena like bowling or basketball just never gets old.
Raceway Drag & Stock Racing (PlayStation 2)
I couldn't test much as most stuff needs to be unlocked by playing through the championship mode, but the few races I could partake in were okay, the framerate was a bit choppy when all 16 cars were on screen at once during stock car races, but as they scattered a bit over the track after a lap or two it ran smoothly for the most part until the race was over. It reminded me of early Dreamcast games visually more so than any PS2 games from 2006.
R:Racing (PlayStation 2)
It's every bit as good as it was on Xbox last time I played it. Now I'd like to get hold of the GameCube version some day too for a complete set.
Turok Evolution (PlayStation 2)
Wow was this a mixed experience. It's kinda ugly for the most part, even for a 2002 release these are horribly dated visuals, in all honesty the older N64 Turok games look better than this.
It's pretty bland in gameplay as well, at least so far. I liked the idea of the flying sections that were a bit like Panzer Dragoon but sadly they had one hit kills whenever you touched anything, including the randomly spawning invisible walls!!
It became a test of patience as the frustration of having to reload the same sections again and again as I would just randomly die in mid air while far away from any visible objects, enemies or other dangers that could've killed me, and only sometimes I'd die in the same place, mostly it changed at random, but after countless tries and three hours later trying to get through a part of the game that otherwise would've taken less than half an hour I got past it and was back doing the normal FPS stuff again. However, later segments of the game become very long and because this game has no in-game checkpoints it's back to the beginning of the entire level every time you die, which can also happen at random for no apparent reason now just like in the flying missions which were super short and took over three hours due to this bullshit!! I'm not doing that with levels that are already long as they are without having to restart them at random intervals.
Sky Odyssey (PlayStation 2)
An adventure game in flight simulation form. It's hard and requires precise flying from the start. I've managed to get past the first level but that's it.
I love that it allows you to customize your place a bit. I'd love more options to do so but a paint job and emblem editor are nice and I appreciate it even if the emblem editor is the weakest I've ever encountered in a game and nowhere near what you can do in Rage Racer, R4 Ridge Racer Type 4 or the Armored Core series.
I'm impressed by how detailed the flying physics are, they simulate airflow in a way no other game I know does.
An interesting thing to note with this game is that while it's a very early release for the PS2 it still has a 60hz option, making this the earliest and oldest PS2 game with a 60hz option that I'm aware of.
Britney's Dance Beat (PlayStation 2)
I've always wondered what this game was like. Now I know. It's a very basic rhythm game with a Britney Spears theme. Not much more to say. I am terrible at rhythm games in general and this was one of the hardest and least forgiving ones I've ever played, which is weird as you'd think a game for Britney Spears fans would be more lenient to non-gamers, beginners and people like me with no sense of rhythm, so I couldn't get anywhere in the main Audition mode and I can safely say I'll never ever be able to unlock Britney. Yeah, the Britney pat of the game feels very tucked away as anything to do with her and fanservice of her is locked away and needs to be unlocked before you can see or use it. You'd think she and the fanservice stuff like music videos etc. would be the stuff you had unlocked by default and other characters and stuff would come later seeing as this is a product for fans of her first and a dance and rhythm game second, but it feels like the opposite is true.
Road Rage 3 (PlayStation 2)
An excellent drift racing game, easily the best in that genre that I've played. Sure, there are other racing games I love even more that has similar things in it like DT Racer, but as a game focused on this type of racing it does an excellent job at what it does and is a lot of fun to play, and successfully pulling off long consecutive drifts both up and down tight and technically challenging mountain roads feels endlessly satisfying.
It runs silky smooth and looks fairly nice too, nothing overly impressive to look at but at least it has no issues with the framerate. I just wish they could've had some proper reflections on the cars.
A fun fact to note is that this game, while originally developed and published by Atlus in Japan it was published by the infamous Phoenix Games here in Europe. As far as I know that makes for the only good game they've ever published.
The Getaway Black Monday (PlayStation 2)
Well this was a disappointment. It's uglier than the original Getaway, it has a much worse framerate, it controls worse with much worse vehicle crash physics, there's lots of glitches and I even saw hug chunks of the graphics pop in and out of existence while I was standing still so you can't blame it on loading new geometry, it was just glitchy, and some parts were just not there, you could see through the ground and nothing I did changed that, going away and coming back so the game loaded the area again changed nothing, it's just poorly made it seems.
That being said it's still an okay free roaming game with a nice big chunk of London realistically recreated in virtual form and there is still some fun to be had, the first game just did it much better is all.
Starsky & Hutch (GameCube)
A good version of the game but I prefer the GBA version a lot more. If anything this makes me appreciate the GBA version even more as it manages to do almost everything this version does but on infinitely less powerful hardware and more streamlined, this takes forever to do anything and feels drawn out and convoluted by comparison. Still, it's nice to have another GameCube game as that part of my collection is crippled by default due to GameCube not having a lot of games I want, so any game that can help fill it out a bit is most welcome.
Metro 2033 (Xbox 360)
This is literally unplayable. The forced auto walking ruins it. I've already died multiple times simply because I can't stop the character from walking over edged falling to his death and I've just started playing, it's a whole project trying to line him up to press a button because he just walks past everything! It's broken by design. I don't understand how anyone can play this. By far the worst controls in any game I've ever played spanning the last 30 years. At first I thought it may just be some really obscure glitch but i found nothing online about it and it's there with all controllers I have, no settings change this, I've tried rebooting, I've tried installing the disc, I've tried deleting all the game data and nothing i do changes it so as bad as it is I guess they wanted it that way. It's unbelievably bad yet I've read or heard nothing about this as a complaint anywhere? I don't get it. How does anyone cope with this?
He just auto walked through a wall so I skipped a whole part of the level and ended up in some completely other scene I haven't seen before. This is the glitchiest game I've played in a long time.
For "fun" (as in desperation) I went to my storage and dug out one of my old original Xbox 360 controllers, I have two and they're both broken in different ways so I got the one that at least sporadically works, and plugged it in via my old half working charge & play cable and battery pack because I thought to myself this is the only thing I haven't tried yet and it's not going to work but at least it'll be more fun trying to see how little this thing works than actually trying to play this crap with a working controller.. turns out it's the only controller I own that doesn't have the auto walking problem so I've been trying to use it to play the game for a while and I can't say I wanna change my score at all, this game even with working controls is awful with constant in-game cutscenes (if they only wanted to make a horror b-movie why did they make a game in the first place?), quick time events, glitches out the fracking wazoo (now IA characters and enemies glitch through walls as well, so it wasn't just my own character earlier who can do it, it's a feature everyone can enjoy!!), lackluster weapons, dark and unevenly detailed visuals (doom 3 on original Xbox feels like it's played out outdoors on a bright sunny day compared to this), the one thing I've liked so far was a hot prostitute looking character that walked past as I was contextually forced to sit at a table and drink alcohol while listening to some dialog I cared nothing about as she disappeared as quickly as she popped up outta nowhere. I hate how there's no good display of information, everything is hidden away so you're getting little to no tactical feedback and then there are all the little things, for example like how you can't have the pointer "compass" on screen without having everything else tucked away, you can't even run with it because the character keeps flailing his arms madly if you do so you can't look at the damn thing telling you where to go to trigger the next drawn out uninteresting in-game cutscene you're forced to sit through until the next uneventful and glitchy context sensitive event happens, or how the AI is mentally retarded and just sits in corners not doing jack shit letting you kill whole rooms of enemies on your own until you've reached the next context sensitive point where the AI finally understands that it's time to do something, like open a door because our hero is too fucking incapable of doing such demanding tasks apparently.
This game has very rapidly become a strong top contender for worst game of the previous generation + all time for me.
Metro Last Light (Xbox 360)
I couldn't take anymore of 2033 so I decided to give Last Light a go in hopes that after years making a sequel they'd at least learn to program walking or realise how awful the constant interruption of gameplay with context cutscenes were or some kind of improvements or problems fixed. But no. They did not. All the same problems are here even the auto walking makes a return making it equally as unplayable as 2033. I am gobsmacked by this developer's ineptitude.
So I've been trying to try out Last Light some more to see if a single thing has been fixed or improved over 2033 at all (spoiler: nothing has been fixed or improved, in fact some things seem even worse, more incomplete and glitchier than in the first game) I stumbled across this funny little thing.
While allowing the game to auto walk, as they both love to do against my will except with my broken controller I can't use anyway, turns out even the game itself seems to realize it's not suppose to be doing that shit as the fucking idle animations started playing while he was still walking! While walking forward he starts checking his gun and counting his bullets and stuff.
It's beyond words at this point so I'm just gonna pretend I never played either of these and never had the money I bought them with and never bought them and they don't exist at all, at least then maybe I'll be able to sleep at night after this.
I am now officially done with this shit, no more Metro for me ever.
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