Februari 22nd:
The first order of 2017 has arrived!
Mega Drive:
Kawasaki Superbikes
Game Boy Advance:
Hot Wheels Stunt Track Challenge
PlayStation:
Loaded
PlayStation 2:
Taito Legends 2
V-Rally 3
Wednesday, February 22, 2017
Thursday, February 2, 2017
Now Playing - Februari 2017
Started off februari with playing Conan on Xbox 360 again.
Conan (Xbox 360)
It holds up very well even now in 2017, 11 years after it came out. The only thing with any shortcomings at all is the visual part, but for a 2006 game it still looks great, with only minor specifics showing any sign of ageing, it's by no means an ugly game though. It's bloody and gory, action filled and with many uncensored topless women to shake your analog stick at.
Metal Gear Solid V Ground Zeroes (PlayStation 3)
Just playing around a bit. It's still no great game by any stretch, it remains an overhyped tech demo and mostly a bad one at that given all the glitches and limitations and stuff, but it's easy to come back to even if only for a short burst of gameplay every now and then.
Simple 1500 Vol. 91 The Gambler (PlayStation)
Just testing a random game, the gameplay was just betting on different gambling games and reading character dialog I didn't understand because it was all in japanese, a complete waste of time had it not been for a sexy big boobed lady in a red dress, that was at least something to look at every now and then.
Chaos Break (PlayStation)
A hidden gem survival horror third-person shooting action game with voice acting that challenges and maybe even surpasses the likes of Resident Evil, House of the Dead and CastleVania Symphony of the Night, yeah, it's that awesome. It plays very well, has some cool moves and such, I really like it a lot so far and will keep playing.
Speed King Neo Kobe 2045 (PlayStation)
Konami's attempt at futuristic hover racing. It's Stiff and ugly compared to even the first WipEout and it's a pure racing game with no pickups or other abilities, but it still feels like it manages to stay slightly above the level of some other games like it from those days. It's not great but it's at least something and I kinda wanna play some more and see if it gets better, I know there are some really cool unlockable ships like the Vic-Viper from Gradius so I at least wanna try to acquire that.
Die Hard Trilogy (PlayStation)
A classic I've been wanting to revisit for a while now, it's still tons of fun. I still love Die Harder the most, the on-rail shooter, it's so damn detailed and fun, I absolutely love it. Die Hard With A Vengeance, the driving game, remains my second favorite, I love just driving around causing havoc and finding cool hidden vehicles. Die Hard, the third-person shooter, remains the one I struggle with the most, it has great stuff in it but it also has some annoying parts, like the end-of-level bomb timers and the stiff controls, it's still good and fun for the most part though.
OutRun2 (Xbox, playing on Xbox 360)
A modern classic and it holds up well, it runs a bit less smoothly on Xbox 360 than it does on original Xbox but is still fully playable and enjoyable.
OutRun (Arcade, playing in OutRun2 on Xbox 360)
The arcade original is an unlockable for OutRun2 on Xbox. I never got to try this on my original Xbox before it died but when played on Xbox 360 there are some visual glitches with sprites not lining up correctly, beside that it runs smoothly and as it should and it's still fully playable.
Robin Hood Prince of Thieves (Entertainment System)
One of the first game I ever got and a favorite to this day, incredible game with varied and incredibly deep gameplay, great music, great visuals, smooth controls and a story that makes most RPGs at the time and for many years that followed look shallow by comparison, and it's a movie licensed 8-bit generation game doing this!! It defies all logic in the best possible ways.
Earthworm Jim (Mega Drive)
This game was fun back in the day and it's still fun, slightly better than I recall if anything.
Earthworm Jim (Super Nintendo)
This version usually gets the short straw after the Mega Drive version gets all the love, but I honestly can't pick a winner, they both have things the other lacks and in my book it's an even draw.
GoldenEye Rogue Agent (Xbox, playing on Xbox 360)
Damn this game is good, I love the manual dual wielding system of your weapons, the weapons themselves and the visuals look great. To date it's the only game with GoldenEye in the title that I like, if only the other games were anywhere near this good.
Kawasaki Superbikes (Mega Drive)
Finally got this game for myself, it's really good, with impressive flat-shaded polygonal 3D visuals and good driving physics and everything, there's even a turbo mode where the sprites are made smaller to make the game run faster if you wish to have a harder challenge and better sense of speed, I love this addition, it reminds me of the turbo mode in the excellent RollCage on PlayStation.
Hot Wheels Stunt Track Challenge (Game Boy Advance)
A very enjoyable and competent polygonal 3D racing game, similar to Lego Drome Racers in many ways. Unlike Drome Racers however the cars in Stunt Track Challenge are fully polygonal and even texture mapped, in Drome Racers all the cars were multi-sided sprites and only the tracks were polygonal. There's a stunt trick system that grants points and turbo boost power and there are offensive and defensive pickups. Thankfully the trick system in this is a much better way to bring variety and depth to the gameplay than the downright awful drag racing mode in Drome Racers.
Kill.Switch (Game Boy Advance)
A third-person 3D game, very technically impressive, but I'm not quite falling for it, maybe if I give it some more time.
Blades of Thunder (Game Boy Advance)
A 3D helicopter on-rail action shooting game, very enjoyable, reminds me a whole lot of the excellent Super Hind on PSP.
Monster Truck Madness (Game Boy Advance)
A rather enjoyable Monster Truck game with good gameplay and impressive 3D visuals.
Monster Trucks (Game Boy Advance)
An average game with some average 3D visuals and very little else to offer.
Monster Trucks Mayhem (Game Boy Advance)
An awful game with bad 3D visuals with nothing of value to offer.
Smashing Drive (Game Boy Advance)
It's choppy but it's still one of the more impressive 3D titles with lots of stuff to drive and smash through, featuring fully polygonal and texture mapped levels and vehicles.
V-Rally 3 (PlayStation 2)
After having enjoyed the fantastic GBA port for so many years it's at the very least interesting to finally get to play the proper console version, though so far it hasn't exactly impressed me, it looks fairly nice but there are downsides like minor stuttering in the framerate, minor screen tearing, no real-time reflections on the car and no controller configuration options whatsoever while not using the right analog stick at all and instead using X to accelerate, square to brake and circle to handbrake, to say the least it feels very archaic using this setup for a PS2 game even if the game is a relatively early release for the system having come out in 2001. The cars look nice though and the environments look on par with other rally racers of the time so it's not all bad. I guess I've just been spoiled by how good the GBA version was and how it pushed that system while this version on PS2 is far below what the PS2 can handle, even other rally games at the time were pushing the PS2 at least a little harder than this with better results.
Loaded (PlayStation)
Ah, the original Loaded, I loved this game back in the day and finally have a copy of my very own. I still love the sequel even more but this is an excellent game nonetheless and both are worthy additions to any PSX owner's library.
Taito Legends 2 (PlayStation 2)
A rather good collection with some excellent games included, and with heavy hitters such as RayStorm and G-Darius as PS2 exclusives this is the version to get I'd say, the emulation is also slightly better than in the Xbox version which was ported by another team of programmers using unoptimized M.A.M.E. emulation instead.
Elasto Mania (PC)
Haven't played this in 15 years, started playing, soon I had already set some new records. Good games never really leave your system even when you're apart for ages.
Conan (Xbox 360)
It holds up very well even now in 2017, 11 years after it came out. The only thing with any shortcomings at all is the visual part, but for a 2006 game it still looks great, with only minor specifics showing any sign of ageing, it's by no means an ugly game though. It's bloody and gory, action filled and with many uncensored topless women to shake your analog stick at.
Metal Gear Solid V Ground Zeroes (PlayStation 3)
Just playing around a bit. It's still no great game by any stretch, it remains an overhyped tech demo and mostly a bad one at that given all the glitches and limitations and stuff, but it's easy to come back to even if only for a short burst of gameplay every now and then.
Simple 1500 Vol. 91 The Gambler (PlayStation)
Just testing a random game, the gameplay was just betting on different gambling games and reading character dialog I didn't understand because it was all in japanese, a complete waste of time had it not been for a sexy big boobed lady in a red dress, that was at least something to look at every now and then.
Chaos Break (PlayStation)
A hidden gem survival horror third-person shooting action game with voice acting that challenges and maybe even surpasses the likes of Resident Evil, House of the Dead and CastleVania Symphony of the Night, yeah, it's that awesome. It plays very well, has some cool moves and such, I really like it a lot so far and will keep playing.
Speed King Neo Kobe 2045 (PlayStation)
Konami's attempt at futuristic hover racing. It's Stiff and ugly compared to even the first WipEout and it's a pure racing game with no pickups or other abilities, but it still feels like it manages to stay slightly above the level of some other games like it from those days. It's not great but it's at least something and I kinda wanna play some more and see if it gets better, I know there are some really cool unlockable ships like the Vic-Viper from Gradius so I at least wanna try to acquire that.
Die Hard Trilogy (PlayStation)
A classic I've been wanting to revisit for a while now, it's still tons of fun. I still love Die Harder the most, the on-rail shooter, it's so damn detailed and fun, I absolutely love it. Die Hard With A Vengeance, the driving game, remains my second favorite, I love just driving around causing havoc and finding cool hidden vehicles. Die Hard, the third-person shooter, remains the one I struggle with the most, it has great stuff in it but it also has some annoying parts, like the end-of-level bomb timers and the stiff controls, it's still good and fun for the most part though.
OutRun2 (Xbox, playing on Xbox 360)
A modern classic and it holds up well, it runs a bit less smoothly on Xbox 360 than it does on original Xbox but is still fully playable and enjoyable.
OutRun (Arcade, playing in OutRun2 on Xbox 360)
The arcade original is an unlockable for OutRun2 on Xbox. I never got to try this on my original Xbox before it died but when played on Xbox 360 there are some visual glitches with sprites not lining up correctly, beside that it runs smoothly and as it should and it's still fully playable.
Robin Hood Prince of Thieves (Entertainment System)
One of the first game I ever got and a favorite to this day, incredible game with varied and incredibly deep gameplay, great music, great visuals, smooth controls and a story that makes most RPGs at the time and for many years that followed look shallow by comparison, and it's a movie licensed 8-bit generation game doing this!! It defies all logic in the best possible ways.
Earthworm Jim (Mega Drive)
This game was fun back in the day and it's still fun, slightly better than I recall if anything.
Earthworm Jim (Super Nintendo)
This version usually gets the short straw after the Mega Drive version gets all the love, but I honestly can't pick a winner, they both have things the other lacks and in my book it's an even draw.
GoldenEye Rogue Agent (Xbox, playing on Xbox 360)
Damn this game is good, I love the manual dual wielding system of your weapons, the weapons themselves and the visuals look great. To date it's the only game with GoldenEye in the title that I like, if only the other games were anywhere near this good.
Kawasaki Superbikes (Mega Drive)
Finally got this game for myself, it's really good, with impressive flat-shaded polygonal 3D visuals and good driving physics and everything, there's even a turbo mode where the sprites are made smaller to make the game run faster if you wish to have a harder challenge and better sense of speed, I love this addition, it reminds me of the turbo mode in the excellent RollCage on PlayStation.
Hot Wheels Stunt Track Challenge (Game Boy Advance)
A very enjoyable and competent polygonal 3D racing game, similar to Lego Drome Racers in many ways. Unlike Drome Racers however the cars in Stunt Track Challenge are fully polygonal and even texture mapped, in Drome Racers all the cars were multi-sided sprites and only the tracks were polygonal. There's a stunt trick system that grants points and turbo boost power and there are offensive and defensive pickups. Thankfully the trick system in this is a much better way to bring variety and depth to the gameplay than the downright awful drag racing mode in Drome Racers.
Kill.Switch (Game Boy Advance)
A third-person 3D game, very technically impressive, but I'm not quite falling for it, maybe if I give it some more time.
Blades of Thunder (Game Boy Advance)
A 3D helicopter on-rail action shooting game, very enjoyable, reminds me a whole lot of the excellent Super Hind on PSP.
Monster Truck Madness (Game Boy Advance)
A rather enjoyable Monster Truck game with good gameplay and impressive 3D visuals.
Monster Trucks (Game Boy Advance)
An average game with some average 3D visuals and very little else to offer.
Monster Trucks Mayhem (Game Boy Advance)
An awful game with bad 3D visuals with nothing of value to offer.
Smashing Drive (Game Boy Advance)
It's choppy but it's still one of the more impressive 3D titles with lots of stuff to drive and smash through, featuring fully polygonal and texture mapped levels and vehicles.
V-Rally 3 (PlayStation 2)
After having enjoyed the fantastic GBA port for so many years it's at the very least interesting to finally get to play the proper console version, though so far it hasn't exactly impressed me, it looks fairly nice but there are downsides like minor stuttering in the framerate, minor screen tearing, no real-time reflections on the car and no controller configuration options whatsoever while not using the right analog stick at all and instead using X to accelerate, square to brake and circle to handbrake, to say the least it feels very archaic using this setup for a PS2 game even if the game is a relatively early release for the system having come out in 2001. The cars look nice though and the environments look on par with other rally racers of the time so it's not all bad. I guess I've just been spoiled by how good the GBA version was and how it pushed that system while this version on PS2 is far below what the PS2 can handle, even other rally games at the time were pushing the PS2 at least a little harder than this with better results.
Loaded (PlayStation)
Ah, the original Loaded, I loved this game back in the day and finally have a copy of my very own. I still love the sequel even more but this is an excellent game nonetheless and both are worthy additions to any PSX owner's library.
Taito Legends 2 (PlayStation 2)
A rather good collection with some excellent games included, and with heavy hitters such as RayStorm and G-Darius as PS2 exclusives this is the version to get I'd say, the emulation is also slightly better than in the Xbox version which was ported by another team of programmers using unoptimized M.A.M.E. emulation instead.
Elasto Mania (PC)
Haven't played this in 15 years, started playing, soon I had already set some new records. Good games never really leave your system even when you're apart for ages.
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