May 5th:
Went to a Retro Game Convention in Gothenburg with some friends and bought some neat stuff. I bought one cartridge of Space Battle for Intellivision, but then later found a cheaper one with the overlays and manual laying in a big box of random stuff, so I bought that copy too! There were no refunds, so yeah, simple as that. (all items are pre-owned unless otherwise noted)
IntelliVision:
Advanced Dungeons and Dragons Treasure of Tarmin (cartridge only)
Tron Deadly Discs (cartridge only)
Space Battle (cartridge only)
Space Battle (cartridge, two controller overlays and manual)
Star Strike (cartridge only)
Mega Drive:
Abrams Battle Tank (cartridge only)
MIG-29 Fighter Pilot (cartridge only)
32X:
Cosmic Carnage (cartridge only)
DS:
Asphalt Urban GT (no instruction manual)
Collectibles:
Princess Daisy - Super Mario Super Size Figure Collection (version with keyring hanger, new and sealed)
Princess Daisy - Super Mario Super Size Figure Collection (version without keyring hanger, new and sealed)
Steel Battalion - Lycoming Defense Systems Vitzh 1st-Generation - Capcom Figure Collection (new and sealed)
Steel Battalion - Lycoming Defense Systems Quasar 3rd-Generation - Capcom Figure Collection (new and sealed)
Other:
Virtua Racing (Mega Drive) rental case
Tomb Raider (Saturn) instruction manual
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May 12th:
One of my friends who was with me to the Retro Game Convention a week ago had bought a game he didn't like, so he gave it to me.
Mega Drive:
688 Attack Sub (cartridge only)
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May 14th:
A trip to the local GameStop resulted in some nice finds today. (all items are pre-owned unless otherwise noted)
Hardware:
AtGames SEGA Mega Drive Plug N Play with 81 built-in games, cartridge slot, power adapter, stereo composite AV-cables and two 6-button controllers (new and complete in box)
PlayStation 3:
Battleship
BlazBlue Continuum Shift Extend
Dead Rising 2
EyeCreate
Far Cry 3
God of War Ascension
Valkyria Chronicles
PlayStation Vita:
Dynasty Warriors Next (no instruction manual)
Xbox 360:
BlazBlue Continuum Shift - Limited Edition (no instruction manual)
Dead Island Riptide - Special Edition
F.E.A.R. 2 Project Origin
Grand Theft Auto V Five (no instruction manual)
Mass Effect
Mass Effect 2
Prey
Smackdown Vs. Raw 2008
Star Wars The Clone Wars Republic Heroes
Collectibles:
Disney Infinity 3.0 - Cars 2 - Holley Shiftwell (figure only)
Disney Infinity 3.0 - Star Wars - Ahsoka Tano (figure only)
Skylanders Imaginators - Golden Queen (figure only)
Skylanders Superchargers - Hot Streak (vehicle only)
Skylanders Superchargers - Jet Stream (vehicle only)
Skylanders Swap Force - Ninja Stealth Elf (figure only)
Totaku WipEout Feisar FX350 (new and sealed)
Totaku WipEout AG-SYS (new and sealed)
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May 17th:
Took a long walk today and bought some stuff along the way.
Collectibles:
3x Marvel Avengers Black Widow Hasbro action figure (2016, new and sealed)
DVD:
Dumb and Dumber Unrated (1994, new and sealed)
Bluray:
Monster High Clawesome Double Feature (2014, Monster High Fright On! (2011), Monster High Escape from Skull Shores (2012), new and sealed)
Penguins of Madagascar (2014, new and sealed)
Robocop (2013, new and sealed)
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May 22nd:
Ordered some games online during a 20th anniversary sale that Discshop.se was having. Got every game for only 20kr each, all new and sealed.
UPDATE: the order arrived and I went and picked it up the next day, May 23rd
PlayStation 3:
Battlefield 4
Borderlands 2 - The Premiere Club Edition
Call of Duty Modern Warfare 3
Duke Nukem Forever - Duke's Kick Ass Edition
Medal of Honor Warfighter - Limited Edition
Prototype 2 - Limited! Radnet Edition
Rage - Anarchy Edition
XCOM Enemy Unknown - Elite Soldier Pack Edition
Xbox 360:
Battlefield 4
Duke Nukem Forever - Duke's Kick Ass Edition
Medal of Honor Warfighter - Limited Edition
Prototype 2 - Limited! Radnet Edition
XCOM Enemy Unknown - Elite Soldier Pack Edition
Showing posts with label SEGA. Show all posts
Showing posts with label SEGA. Show all posts
Sunday, May 5, 2019
Friday, February 1, 2019
Now Playing - Februari 2019
Metal Gear Solid V Ground Zeroes (PlayStation 3)
Started a new game, it's a good game even if it's a bit small. The problems are frustrating at times but the fun you can have make up for them enough.
played some demos that were already on the PS3 Slim I bought, the two I tried out were Eufloria and Urban Trial Freestyle, both were good
Killzone HD (PlayStation 3)
Started a new game. Still my favorite in the series, though Mercenary on Vita is really fantastic too and I will play that again soon as well.
Shadow Fall on PS4 is another great one but I don't have a PS4 to play it on right now.
Killzone 2 (PlayStation 3)
trying it out, it's a LOT glitchier than I remember, but the extreme amount of invisible walls all over the place keeping you from exploring even a tiny amount are just as plentiful and claustrophobic as I remember, also I had forgotten you could carry less weapons than in the original Killzone, you can hold literally just one single weapon of choice, beise that you have a permagun with infinite ammo and grenades, if you want ANY other weapon than the one you already picked up you're gonna have to swap that one for the new one no matter how much you don't wanna drag that infinite pea shooting pistol around, no exceptions, ever, it sucks! This was a very big drop down from the quality of the original game on PS2, the only real upgrades are minor visual things like the polygonal detail, some special effects like bump maps and lens flares etc., higher screen resolution, bigger color depth and better framerates, but textures are actually much lower res than were in the original on PS2, so it's not all better (it fucking should be!).
Also the ability to play as different characters by choice (after they were unlocked) is gone as well, this really sucks as I loved being able to replay levels as the different characters to see what different paths they took and what they got to do when I was doing my thing elsewhere last time.
EyeCreate (PlayStation 3)
recorded some silly things
Sly Cooper Thieves in Time (PlayStation 3)
started a new game
Superstars Racing V8 (PlayStation 3)
SuperCar Challenge (PlayStation 3)
BAJA Edge of Control (PlayStation 3)
Columns (Master System)
Columns (Game Gear)
Columns (Mega Drive)
Total Carnage (Midway Arcade Origins, PlayStation 3)
played through it, got bad ending, not a great game to be honest, unbalanced and focused far too much to steal your money by artificially making it frustrating and unfairly hard, doesn't flow well at all, extremely repetitive, stiff and slow controls, it has some good visuals but that's about it
Loaded (PlayStation)
Tomb Raider Legend (Tomb Raider Trilogy, PlayStation 3)
Finally got to playing this and so far it's not very good, some visual problems with the new lighting and shadows engine are very apparent and don't look good at all and there have been some odd control glitches where stuff happens without me pressing anything, grandes have been tossed and weapon changes have happened mid combat when all I was doing was moving in a single direction and shooting with default guns normally, no other buttons being pressed, very annoying. It also seems to have missed some of the treasures I know for a fact I picked up, I had to replay Lara's Mansion 5 times already to pick up the same damn treasure it kept ignoring when I picked it up.
I'll see it through to the end though as I know this game very well having played through most versions of it over the years. Not a good start though, not good at all, so far it's the worst port of this version of the game I've played, not counting the GBA or DS versions as they are not ports of this version but entirely different games made from the ground up for both those systems respectively.
Started a new game, it's a good game even if it's a bit small. The problems are frustrating at times but the fun you can have make up for them enough.
played some demos that were already on the PS3 Slim I bought, the two I tried out were Eufloria and Urban Trial Freestyle, both were good
Killzone HD (PlayStation 3)
Started a new game. Still my favorite in the series, though Mercenary on Vita is really fantastic too and I will play that again soon as well.
Shadow Fall on PS4 is another great one but I don't have a PS4 to play it on right now.
Killzone 2 (PlayStation 3)
trying it out, it's a LOT glitchier than I remember, but the extreme amount of invisible walls all over the place keeping you from exploring even a tiny amount are just as plentiful and claustrophobic as I remember, also I had forgotten you could carry less weapons than in the original Killzone, you can hold literally just one single weapon of choice, beise that you have a permagun with infinite ammo and grenades, if you want ANY other weapon than the one you already picked up you're gonna have to swap that one for the new one no matter how much you don't wanna drag that infinite pea shooting pistol around, no exceptions, ever, it sucks! This was a very big drop down from the quality of the original game on PS2, the only real upgrades are minor visual things like the polygonal detail, some special effects like bump maps and lens flares etc., higher screen resolution, bigger color depth and better framerates, but textures are actually much lower res than were in the original on PS2, so it's not all better (it fucking should be!).
Also the ability to play as different characters by choice (after they were unlocked) is gone as well, this really sucks as I loved being able to replay levels as the different characters to see what different paths they took and what they got to do when I was doing my thing elsewhere last time.
EyeCreate (PlayStation 3)
recorded some silly things
Sly Cooper Thieves in Time (PlayStation 3)
started a new game
Superstars Racing V8 (PlayStation 3)
SuperCar Challenge (PlayStation 3)
BAJA Edge of Control (PlayStation 3)
Columns (Master System)
Columns (Game Gear)
Columns (Mega Drive)
Total Carnage (Midway Arcade Origins, PlayStation 3)
played through it, got bad ending, not a great game to be honest, unbalanced and focused far too much to steal your money by artificially making it frustrating and unfairly hard, doesn't flow well at all, extremely repetitive, stiff and slow controls, it has some good visuals but that's about it
Loaded (PlayStation)
Tomb Raider Legend (Tomb Raider Trilogy, PlayStation 3)
Finally got to playing this and so far it's not very good, some visual problems with the new lighting and shadows engine are very apparent and don't look good at all and there have been some odd control glitches where stuff happens without me pressing anything, grandes have been tossed and weapon changes have happened mid combat when all I was doing was moving in a single direction and shooting with default guns normally, no other buttons being pressed, very annoying. It also seems to have missed some of the treasures I know for a fact I picked up, I had to replay Lara's Mansion 5 times already to pick up the same damn treasure it kept ignoring when I picked it up.
I'll see it through to the end though as I know this game very well having played through most versions of it over the years. Not a good start though, not good at all, so far it's the worst port of this version of the game I've played, not counting the GBA or DS versions as they are not ports of this version but entirely different games made from the ground up for both those systems respectively.
Tuesday, January 1, 2019
Now Playing - Januari 2019
CastleVania Symphony of the Night (PlayStation, played on PlayStation Portable)
created a new game file for my annual playthrough of 2019, calling it "MM X IX"
Shinobi (3DS)
playing around a bit in the free play mode with some of the unlockable cheats, it's definitely better but you're still limited to what you've unlocked in the normal mode, so it's not a lot to have fun with until you've suffered through til the end of the main mode and at least unlocked all the levels to free play in
Rouge The Bat in Sonic The Hedgehog (Mega Drive)
A homebrew hack/mod of Sonic The Hedgehog that replaces Sonic with Rouge, fully custom adapted with her own graphics, new unique moves and abilities.
New favorite game of all time? Nah, it'd need an official version and physical release and preferably a new game to go with the new stuff this one has in it, but for what it is, a hack of the original Sonic game, it's exceptionally well made and I love it. As a Rouge fan this is one of the best games I've ever played for sure.
Wacky Races (Mega Drive, emulated prototype ROM)
Easily the best kart racer of the 16-bit generation in the things it gets right, with just a little bit more tweaking and some other minor things it would've been perfect, sadly it was never finished and remains only available as an unreleased prototype ROM, but wow what a prototype, it has FMV, polygonal graphics, excellent sprite quality, lots of high quality animation and tons of high quality sample based audio and on top of it all it plays with a good framerate and high speed, the controls are a bit of a mixed bag but they are functional and better than some games that did get released, so there was great potential in close reach.
It's easily one of the most technically impressive games of the 16-bit generation, and that says a thing or two when you look at some of the best competition for technical achievements that generation had.
Beam Rider (Intellivision)
A very good space shooter with a 3D viewpoint.
The Last of Us (PlayStation 3)
Trying it out on my newly purchased PS3 Slim while also testing the controllers I got for it, all works well, had to safe mode reset it to work though as it was set up for HDMI display so I got no image or sound on my old SDTV at first, thankfully it's easy to do, just hold the power button down until you hear a second beep and it's pretty much done and you can play as normal.
Had to start a new game of course, but I haven't played the game in so long that I was planning on starting over anyway as my old save file from 2015 on my Super Slim is so old now that I don't even remember where I was, I think Fall, but more than that I dunno, I just know I hadn't gotten to Winter yet, at least.
Ratchet & Clank Tools of Destruction (PlayStation 3)
Finally getting into this game, it's pretty good so far, it looks good, plays smoothly, worst thing has been that a lot of side paths and stuff to pick up is missable so extremely easily, so now already I have to go back and redo stuff from all the way back from the beginning of the game as you're not allowed to backtrack in the levels at all, they're linear and almost every step forward blocks your ability to go back even a single room or area, very annoying when you know there was more stuff back there if only you could open that door again that was open without any issues just a second ago or jump back on the platform just over there where you should easily be able to reach, but no, they're permanently blocked off unless you restart the whole level from the start, I really hate that, it makes the levels feel far less impressive and open, they look big and open ended but it's literally just a pretty corridor.
Space Debris (PlayStation)
Cool Boarders (PlayStation)
It's been a long time since I played this one, it's still one of the best snowboarding games ever, easy to get into, fun to play.
Super Sprint (as part of Midway Arcade Origins, played on PlayStation 3)
Spent a few hours getting over 257000 points, it gets repetitive after a while and the emulation is not perfect, but it's enjoyable enough for a gameplay session from time to time.
created a new game file for my annual playthrough of 2019, calling it "MM X IX"
Shinobi (3DS)
playing around a bit in the free play mode with some of the unlockable cheats, it's definitely better but you're still limited to what you've unlocked in the normal mode, so it's not a lot to have fun with until you've suffered through til the end of the main mode and at least unlocked all the levels to free play in
Rouge The Bat in Sonic The Hedgehog (Mega Drive)
A homebrew hack/mod of Sonic The Hedgehog that replaces Sonic with Rouge, fully custom adapted with her own graphics, new unique moves and abilities.
New favorite game of all time? Nah, it'd need an official version and physical release and preferably a new game to go with the new stuff this one has in it, but for what it is, a hack of the original Sonic game, it's exceptionally well made and I love it. As a Rouge fan this is one of the best games I've ever played for sure.
Wacky Races (Mega Drive, emulated prototype ROM)
Easily the best kart racer of the 16-bit generation in the things it gets right, with just a little bit more tweaking and some other minor things it would've been perfect, sadly it was never finished and remains only available as an unreleased prototype ROM, but wow what a prototype, it has FMV, polygonal graphics, excellent sprite quality, lots of high quality animation and tons of high quality sample based audio and on top of it all it plays with a good framerate and high speed, the controls are a bit of a mixed bag but they are functional and better than some games that did get released, so there was great potential in close reach.
It's easily one of the most technically impressive games of the 16-bit generation, and that says a thing or two when you look at some of the best competition for technical achievements that generation had.
Beam Rider (Intellivision)
A very good space shooter with a 3D viewpoint.
The Last of Us (PlayStation 3)
Trying it out on my newly purchased PS3 Slim while also testing the controllers I got for it, all works well, had to safe mode reset it to work though as it was set up for HDMI display so I got no image or sound on my old SDTV at first, thankfully it's easy to do, just hold the power button down until you hear a second beep and it's pretty much done and you can play as normal.
Had to start a new game of course, but I haven't played the game in so long that I was planning on starting over anyway as my old save file from 2015 on my Super Slim is so old now that I don't even remember where I was, I think Fall, but more than that I dunno, I just know I hadn't gotten to Winter yet, at least.
Ratchet & Clank Tools of Destruction (PlayStation 3)
Finally getting into this game, it's pretty good so far, it looks good, plays smoothly, worst thing has been that a lot of side paths and stuff to pick up is missable so extremely easily, so now already I have to go back and redo stuff from all the way back from the beginning of the game as you're not allowed to backtrack in the levels at all, they're linear and almost every step forward blocks your ability to go back even a single room or area, very annoying when you know there was more stuff back there if only you could open that door again that was open without any issues just a second ago or jump back on the platform just over there where you should easily be able to reach, but no, they're permanently blocked off unless you restart the whole level from the start, I really hate that, it makes the levels feel far less impressive and open, they look big and open ended but it's literally just a pretty corridor.
Space Debris (PlayStation)
Cool Boarders (PlayStation)
It's been a long time since I played this one, it's still one of the best snowboarding games ever, easy to get into, fun to play.
Super Sprint (as part of Midway Arcade Origins, played on PlayStation 3)
Spent a few hours getting over 257000 points, it gets repetitive after a while and the emulation is not perfect, but it's enjoyable enough for a gameplay session from time to time.
Saturday, September 1, 2018
Now Playing - September 2018
It's my birthday this month (september 5th) and since I've declared 2018 to be the year of Intellivision of course I have to play a lot of Intellivision games, but it's also the end of the 32-bit/PlayStation year where I celebrated the 20th anniversary of many fantastic 1997 titles, when I got my PlayStation and that I turned 32 all at once, so a throwback to the past year with lots of 32-bit games is also in order, also my new found enjoyment in solving Rubik's Cube I've been doing that a lot, and of course just a bunch of other awesome games in general, as always, but even more focused and intense because arbitrary number of times the planet has spun around the sun since I was born and such!
Rubik's Cube
fastest time so far 1:47
Centipede (Intellivision)
Defender (Intellivision)
Auto Racing (Intellivision)
River Raid (Intellivision)
Rubik's Puzzle World (DS, played on 3DS)
Total Drivin (PlayStation)
V-Rally (PlayStation)
Neo Kobe 2045 Road Rage (PlayStation)
Centipede (PlayStation)
Cyber Sled (PlayStation)
Steel Talons (Mega Drive)
Cosmic Carnage (32X)
Shinobi (Master System)
A basic platformer action game with a cool gimmick, you can move into the background and foreground of the level, giving some literal depth to the gameplay, very cool indeed.
Deathtrap Dungeon (PlayStation)
A cool 3D hack n slash game where you either play as a generic knight I forget the name of or a hot dominatrix called Red Lotus, guess who I always play as. You go through levels figuring out the puzzles, avoiding deadly traps and fighting enemies with different weapons you find along the way, the battle system is interesting in that you have an attack button but while attacking you can press different directions and do different attacks based on the direction you press, you can for example attack behind you, which is uncommon in games in general as most games will have you face your enemy and force you to turn around to attack whatever was previously behind you. There's a lot of dismemberment on enemy bodies, you can chop off parts of the enemies even after they've died and see parts to flying and leave blood and splatter on the ground and walls and blood dripping down from the ceiling etc.
Shanghai (Master System)
A basic mahjong game.
Shanghai II (Game Gear)
Shanghai II Dragon's Eye (Mega Drive)
A slight graphical improvement and with some more options for tile graphics and background graphics, but the same basic game otherwise.
Yakyuuken Adventure Part II - Gal's Dungeon (Famicom Disc System)
A weird japanese 3D maze game where you hunt down a woman and play rock, scissor, paper with her for a key to the next level.
Sexy Yakyuuken Adventure II - Gal's Dungeon Part II (Famicom Disc System)
Same as the first, just slightly different visuals.
BurgerTime! (Intellivision)
Bomb Squad (Intellivision)
Finally took the time to learn how to play this. It's really cool and I've had a blast playing it, some pun intended.
You have to figure out the numeric code by replacing circuits inside the LEDs on a digital number display to see if they light up or not, and then systematically figure out what the numeric code is and enter it before the timer runs out and the bomb goes off. You have a set of tools at your disposal accessible via the keypad, a wire cutter, a plier, a soldering iron and a fire extinguisher, fires only happen on the higher difficulties though so on the easy settings it goes unused.
The game uses the IntelliVoice module to give you voiced instructions, taunts and hints, making the game feel even more modern and advanced than it already was, which is really cool and gives a very effective feeling of realistic urgency to the game.
Arcade Classics (Game Gear)
Centipede, Pong and some third game I didn't care for enough to even remember what it was. You have the option of using original style visuals or a slight makeover with some more colors, it makes no real difference but it's nice that there's at least some enhancement that uses the higher color depth the Game Gear has to offer.
Centipede was okay, not the best version I've played but not the worst either, just average.
Pong is Pong, the digital control makes it less fun that it can be when using analog controls like on a proper Pong console, also Pong isn't much even at best so this really is not a reason to care for this collection.
And like I said I don't even remember the third.
Basically this is Centipede with Pong as a very minor bonus and it's not even a great version of Centipede.
Over this was a typical 3/5 experience.
Bugs Bunny in Double Trouble (Game Gear)
A very nice looking game that has some seriously generic and unfun gameplay. It's divided into two levels; 1.) Tease Daffy Duck to chase you past sings to change them from Rabbit Season to Duck Season and 2.) jump on a lion to catch dynamite and parachute down and land on places to blow up holes in the ground without the lion touching you on your way down. Both suck. Great visuals wasted on a fairly poor game, I give it a 2/5.
Daffy Duck in Hollywood (Game Gear)
This game baffles me, either I'm missing something or it's just broken and incredibly poorly made, and it's not like there are that many buttons to pick from so if I'm missing something, they hid it well, FAR too well.
Basically it's a platformer, with some good visuals, where you die in one hit but you can pick up a magic wand which grants you a fairy that will take an extra hit for you.
You have a bubble gun you can use to take out very select few enemies, while a majority of the rest are invulnerable even after you've upgraded your gun to shoot explosive fire blasts! Them be some tough enemies..
The levels are non-linear and confusing and there are lots of places that seem like you could go there but you simply can't, it's a game of constant dead ends and wondering; What do I do? Where do I go?
It's very unenjoyable and the controls are not precise and you jump really high, making it hard to stick landings once you go flying.
You can pick between several levels from the get go but I've not enjoyed a single one, and they're not very varied either.
Sadly this is another 2/5.
Earthworm Jim (Game Gear)
A downgraded port of the Mega Drive/Super Nintendo game. It's playable but just barely, the downgrades are many, sadly mostly in the gameplay.
The visuals are good, as usual for Game Gear games, but it plays stiff, unresponsive and inaccurately, making the simplest of jumps and taking out the easiest enemies a chore.
Sadly yet another 2/5.
Mega Man (Game Gear)
One of the best Game Gear games and a great game in the Mega Man series, a favorite for sure.
Sadly it never came out here in Europe or even in Japan, so not many got to experience it back in the day, such a shame as it's a brilliant and super high quality game, not just by Game Gear standards either, it's just fantastic, plain and simple, end of story.
It looks great, plays spot on, sounds great, has great levels, enemies, bosses and plenty of secrets to find.
Needless to say this is an easy game to give 5/5.
GT Racers (Game Boy Advance)
I didn't know there was a GBA version until now, I have it on PS2 where it's one of those games that is so bad that it's entertaining, definitely not because it's a good game but entirely because it's such a broken, buggy, glitchy mess of a game that you can only laugh at it.
The GBA game on the other hand is wildly different, it's a top down racer similar to the excellent Death Rally on PC and Karnage Rally also on GBA.
I've only played some of it but so far it beats both those games in terms of visual quality and it's one of the most technically advanced games on GBA with 3D polygonal objects all around the track, all fully textured, and running with a constant and smooth framerate.
It even plays well with fairly good controls. There are some tracks and cars to pick from. So all in all it's a good game. I haven't played it enough to know if there are any issues yet but it's made one very suprisingly impressive first impression for sure, especially with the infamous PS2 game in mind.
RollCage (PlayStation)
Batman Gotham City Racer (PlayStation)
Frogger (PlayStation)
Venture (Intellivision)
First time playing this one. I think I beat it on my first try, because after I completed the last level and got all the treasure it just looped the last level over and over again.
It's short, simple, but still pretty good. You move around different overworld map levels with some enemies moving around that you can't kill and enter buildings with treasure and killable enemies until you've been in all the rooms and gotten all the treasure, then you complete the level and move onto the next one, until you've found all the treasure in the game, then the last level loops until you run out of lives or quit the game.
You pick up the treasure and get out without getting killed and repeat until you have all the treasure, simple enough. You have a bow and arrows with infinite ammo you can shoot enemies with, you shoot in the direction you're moving in, there's no strafing in this game, and enemies are kind of like xenomorph aliens in that after you kill them they leave behind their bodies that can kill you until they've evaporated entirely, shooting a dead enemy makes it start the decaying over again making it take longer to go away, so avoid shooting the dead!, and as even one single pixel left is enough to kill you if you touch it you really don't want those things to stick around longer than needed.
If you wait around long enough an invincible enemy that can pass through walls appears and hunts you down, but it takes a while and you can just exit a building to escape from it, so it's something I only saw twice, one time when I was putting down the controller after I had killed the enemies and the building I was in was now empty and I thought it was safe and I wanted to turn down the volume a bit, at first I tried to kill it but it didn't die so I just left the building and it was gone, after that I just paused the game whenever I need to as I usually would in any other game, the second time I saw it was when I deliberately waited around to see if I could see it again, and yes, it appears whenever you wait around inside a building.
I never saw it on the overworld map screens so I'm assuming it only appears when you're inside the buildings.
The enemies can only be killed when you're inside the buildings, the enemies on the overworld map can not be killed as you can't use the bow there, you can only use it in the buildings.
Everything is a one hit kill in this, and you can't get any extra lives as far as I can tell, killing enemies just gets you the usual useless points.
There are no bosses, no secrets as far as I can tell and no other bonus or extra stuff, just pick up the treasure and then kill yourself to end the game as it just loops the last map, level 9, until you run out of lives otherwise.
The music is repetitive and simple, but not bad.
The visuals are simplistic but get the job done and at least have some nice color variations, the main character is literally just a red smiley face, that turns into a red frowny face when you get hit by an enemy, and on the overworld map he's literally just a single red pixel. When in buildings he also has his bow and arrow pointing in the direction you're moving, letting you know what direction your arrows will go if you shoot.
You move with the disc and shoot with the side buttons.
The enemies come on a nice variety and they all have two-frame animations while they move around, other than that there are some moving walls of death and the killed enemies evaporating effect is animated quite nicely.
The gameplay is solid enough but it's far too shallow and simple of a game in total, with some type of bosses and a proper end screen giving some satisfaction to completing the game I would've given it at least a 4/5, as it currently stands I'll give it a solid 3/5.
Armored Core (PlayStation)
Started a new game.
Rubik's Cube
fastest time so far 1:47
Centipede (Intellivision)
Defender (Intellivision)
Auto Racing (Intellivision)
River Raid (Intellivision)
Rubik's Puzzle World (DS, played on 3DS)
Total Drivin (PlayStation)
V-Rally (PlayStation)
Neo Kobe 2045 Road Rage (PlayStation)
Centipede (PlayStation)
Cyber Sled (PlayStation)
Steel Talons (Mega Drive)
Cosmic Carnage (32X)
Shinobi (Master System)
A basic platformer action game with a cool gimmick, you can move into the background and foreground of the level, giving some literal depth to the gameplay, very cool indeed.
Deathtrap Dungeon (PlayStation)
A cool 3D hack n slash game where you either play as a generic knight I forget the name of or a hot dominatrix called Red Lotus, guess who I always play as. You go through levels figuring out the puzzles, avoiding deadly traps and fighting enemies with different weapons you find along the way, the battle system is interesting in that you have an attack button but while attacking you can press different directions and do different attacks based on the direction you press, you can for example attack behind you, which is uncommon in games in general as most games will have you face your enemy and force you to turn around to attack whatever was previously behind you. There's a lot of dismemberment on enemy bodies, you can chop off parts of the enemies even after they've died and see parts to flying and leave blood and splatter on the ground and walls and blood dripping down from the ceiling etc.
Shanghai (Master System)
A basic mahjong game.
Shanghai II (Game Gear)
Shanghai II Dragon's Eye (Mega Drive)
A slight graphical improvement and with some more options for tile graphics and background graphics, but the same basic game otherwise.
Yakyuuken Adventure Part II - Gal's Dungeon (Famicom Disc System)
A weird japanese 3D maze game where you hunt down a woman and play rock, scissor, paper with her for a key to the next level.
Sexy Yakyuuken Adventure II - Gal's Dungeon Part II (Famicom Disc System)
Same as the first, just slightly different visuals.
BurgerTime! (Intellivision)
Bomb Squad (Intellivision)
Finally took the time to learn how to play this. It's really cool and I've had a blast playing it, some pun intended.
You have to figure out the numeric code by replacing circuits inside the LEDs on a digital number display to see if they light up or not, and then systematically figure out what the numeric code is and enter it before the timer runs out and the bomb goes off. You have a set of tools at your disposal accessible via the keypad, a wire cutter, a plier, a soldering iron and a fire extinguisher, fires only happen on the higher difficulties though so on the easy settings it goes unused.
The game uses the IntelliVoice module to give you voiced instructions, taunts and hints, making the game feel even more modern and advanced than it already was, which is really cool and gives a very effective feeling of realistic urgency to the game.
Arcade Classics (Game Gear)
Centipede, Pong and some third game I didn't care for enough to even remember what it was. You have the option of using original style visuals or a slight makeover with some more colors, it makes no real difference but it's nice that there's at least some enhancement that uses the higher color depth the Game Gear has to offer.
Centipede was okay, not the best version I've played but not the worst either, just average.
Pong is Pong, the digital control makes it less fun that it can be when using analog controls like on a proper Pong console, also Pong isn't much even at best so this really is not a reason to care for this collection.
And like I said I don't even remember the third.
Basically this is Centipede with Pong as a very minor bonus and it's not even a great version of Centipede.
Over this was a typical 3/5 experience.
Bugs Bunny in Double Trouble (Game Gear)
A very nice looking game that has some seriously generic and unfun gameplay. It's divided into two levels; 1.) Tease Daffy Duck to chase you past sings to change them from Rabbit Season to Duck Season and 2.) jump on a lion to catch dynamite and parachute down and land on places to blow up holes in the ground without the lion touching you on your way down. Both suck. Great visuals wasted on a fairly poor game, I give it a 2/5.
Daffy Duck in Hollywood (Game Gear)
This game baffles me, either I'm missing something or it's just broken and incredibly poorly made, and it's not like there are that many buttons to pick from so if I'm missing something, they hid it well, FAR too well.
Basically it's a platformer, with some good visuals, where you die in one hit but you can pick up a magic wand which grants you a fairy that will take an extra hit for you.
You have a bubble gun you can use to take out very select few enemies, while a majority of the rest are invulnerable even after you've upgraded your gun to shoot explosive fire blasts! Them be some tough enemies..
The levels are non-linear and confusing and there are lots of places that seem like you could go there but you simply can't, it's a game of constant dead ends and wondering; What do I do? Where do I go?
It's very unenjoyable and the controls are not precise and you jump really high, making it hard to stick landings once you go flying.
You can pick between several levels from the get go but I've not enjoyed a single one, and they're not very varied either.
Sadly this is another 2/5.
Earthworm Jim (Game Gear)
A downgraded port of the Mega Drive/Super Nintendo game. It's playable but just barely, the downgrades are many, sadly mostly in the gameplay.
The visuals are good, as usual for Game Gear games, but it plays stiff, unresponsive and inaccurately, making the simplest of jumps and taking out the easiest enemies a chore.
Sadly yet another 2/5.
Mega Man (Game Gear)
One of the best Game Gear games and a great game in the Mega Man series, a favorite for sure.
Sadly it never came out here in Europe or even in Japan, so not many got to experience it back in the day, such a shame as it's a brilliant and super high quality game, not just by Game Gear standards either, it's just fantastic, plain and simple, end of story.
It looks great, plays spot on, sounds great, has great levels, enemies, bosses and plenty of secrets to find.
Needless to say this is an easy game to give 5/5.
GT Racers (Game Boy Advance)
I didn't know there was a GBA version until now, I have it on PS2 where it's one of those games that is so bad that it's entertaining, definitely not because it's a good game but entirely because it's such a broken, buggy, glitchy mess of a game that you can only laugh at it.
The GBA game on the other hand is wildly different, it's a top down racer similar to the excellent Death Rally on PC and Karnage Rally also on GBA.
I've only played some of it but so far it beats both those games in terms of visual quality and it's one of the most technically advanced games on GBA with 3D polygonal objects all around the track, all fully textured, and running with a constant and smooth framerate.
It even plays well with fairly good controls. There are some tracks and cars to pick from. So all in all it's a good game. I haven't played it enough to know if there are any issues yet but it's made one very suprisingly impressive first impression for sure, especially with the infamous PS2 game in mind.
RollCage (PlayStation)
Batman Gotham City Racer (PlayStation)
Frogger (PlayStation)
Venture (Intellivision)
First time playing this one. I think I beat it on my first try, because after I completed the last level and got all the treasure it just looped the last level over and over again.
It's short, simple, but still pretty good. You move around different overworld map levels with some enemies moving around that you can't kill and enter buildings with treasure and killable enemies until you've been in all the rooms and gotten all the treasure, then you complete the level and move onto the next one, until you've found all the treasure in the game, then the last level loops until you run out of lives or quit the game.
You pick up the treasure and get out without getting killed and repeat until you have all the treasure, simple enough. You have a bow and arrows with infinite ammo you can shoot enemies with, you shoot in the direction you're moving in, there's no strafing in this game, and enemies are kind of like xenomorph aliens in that after you kill them they leave behind their bodies that can kill you until they've evaporated entirely, shooting a dead enemy makes it start the decaying over again making it take longer to go away, so avoid shooting the dead!, and as even one single pixel left is enough to kill you if you touch it you really don't want those things to stick around longer than needed.
If you wait around long enough an invincible enemy that can pass through walls appears and hunts you down, but it takes a while and you can just exit a building to escape from it, so it's something I only saw twice, one time when I was putting down the controller after I had killed the enemies and the building I was in was now empty and I thought it was safe and I wanted to turn down the volume a bit, at first I tried to kill it but it didn't die so I just left the building and it was gone, after that I just paused the game whenever I need to as I usually would in any other game, the second time I saw it was when I deliberately waited around to see if I could see it again, and yes, it appears whenever you wait around inside a building.
I never saw it on the overworld map screens so I'm assuming it only appears when you're inside the buildings.
The enemies can only be killed when you're inside the buildings, the enemies on the overworld map can not be killed as you can't use the bow there, you can only use it in the buildings.
Everything is a one hit kill in this, and you can't get any extra lives as far as I can tell, killing enemies just gets you the usual useless points.
There are no bosses, no secrets as far as I can tell and no other bonus or extra stuff, just pick up the treasure and then kill yourself to end the game as it just loops the last map, level 9, until you run out of lives otherwise.
The music is repetitive and simple, but not bad.
The visuals are simplistic but get the job done and at least have some nice color variations, the main character is literally just a red smiley face, that turns into a red frowny face when you get hit by an enemy, and on the overworld map he's literally just a single red pixel. When in buildings he also has his bow and arrow pointing in the direction you're moving, letting you know what direction your arrows will go if you shoot.
You move with the disc and shoot with the side buttons.
The enemies come on a nice variety and they all have two-frame animations while they move around, other than that there are some moving walls of death and the killed enemies evaporating effect is animated quite nicely.
The gameplay is solid enough but it's far too shallow and simple of a game in total, with some type of bosses and a proper end screen giving some satisfaction to completing the game I would've given it at least a 4/5, as it currently stands I'll give it a solid 3/5.
Armored Core (PlayStation)
Started a new game.
Thursday, August 9, 2018
Now Playing - Augusti 2018
Super Mario Bros. 2 (Entertainment System)
Tearaway (PlayStation Vita)
Sonic The Hedgehog (as part of SEGA 3D Classics on 3DS)
CarmaGeddoN (PlayStation)
The classic CarmaGeddoN, PSX version, awesome.
Super Mario Bros. (Entertainment System)
Wario's Woods (Entertainment System)
A puzzle game where you play as Toad. Bombs drop from above and you have to combine them with creatures to clear the area before the ceiling lowers down and crushes you. It's pretty good, sure beats a lot of other similar puzzle games from back then.
Wario's Woods (Super Nintendo)
The Entertainment System game of the same name with a Super Mario Allstars makeover.
Sudoku portable LCD game
Sudoku
just regular Sudoku on paper
Bomb Jack (SG-1000)
Perhaps not the best version of Bomb Jack ever, but a good and enjoyable one for sure.
CastleVania Legends (Game Boy)
I love this game, it's very tough but also very enjoyable. Sonia is best Belmont origin canon.
Rubik's Cube
trained and learned how to solve one in real life, my fastest time solving a cube from scrambled to all sides complete as of this post is 2m21s
Rubik's Puzzle World (DS, played on 3DS)
After having learned how to solve a Rubik's Cube in real life on an actual cube I was able to solve it in this game with a time of 4:45, which is twice as long than I can do it in real life (fastest time as of typing this in 2:21) but it's far less intuitive and much clunkier with the low res and highly inaccurate touch screen control of a DS/3DS, so I still think it's a very good time for someone who just learned how to do it.
Auto Racing (Intellivision)
just playing some awesome Intellivision games again
BurgerTime! (Intellivision)
Centipede (Intellivision)
Defender (Intellivision)
Pac-Man (Intellivision)
Popeye (Intellivision)
Q*bert (Intellivision)
Scooby Doo's Maze Chase (Intellivision)
this was a new one for me, another good maze game (aka "Pac-Man clone"), very typical for the time
Nightlong Union City Conspiracy (PC)
also playing some nostalgic PC point and click games, it's not a genre I like but it has a handful games I love
The C.H.A.O.S. Continuum (PC)
The Colonel's Bequest A Laura Bow Mystery (PC)
Ninja Gaiden (Master System)
Total Drivin (PlayStation)
Super Mario Bros. 3 (Entertainment System)
Sonic The Hedgehog 3 (Mega Drive)
it's been ages since I played this, I usually just play the original Sonic The Hedgehog, Sonic CD or Sonic & Knuckles or the old classics, the rest I only play a bit sporadically, sometimes a lot and then not at all for long stretches of time
Samurai Showdown (Mega Drive)
another one I haven't played it ages, I think it was last in the early 2000s on PC, the MS-DOS version
Time Trax (Mega Drive, prototype rom)
an odd platformer with some slow motion time manipulation power, it's pretty good but it's only a prototype, I don't think it ever was released as a full retail version sadly, it's not bad at all and feels pretty much complete, it's far better than many games that did come out back in the day
Scooby-Doo Mystery (Mega Drive)
an awful point and click mystery solving adventure game starring Scooby-Doo and Shaggy, with the rest of the gang being absent during the game only to be part of the intros and outros of the two mysteries the game has to offer. it's slow, clunky, illogical, unintuitive and arbitrary as fuck, the only way to solve a vast majority of the "puzzles" is to try every possible combination until you randomly find the correct thing to do, except for a handful thing you do there really is no thought, logic, rhyme or reason to anything else in the entire game, you will get stuck, a lot, and it's not your fault, the game is just extremely poorly designed, it looks very nice with good level of detail, nice animation and such, and the audio is fine as well, but damn, the gameplay just brutally murders the entire experience, just play this with a guide from the beginning if you ever try it out, and save yourself the headache
Tom & Jerry Frantic Antics (Mega Drive)
holy fucknuts this game is awful, it looks bad, sounds horrible and plays worse than just about anything else ever made, it's nothing short of a travesti it got released in this condition
Steel Talons (Mega Drive)
River Raid (Intellivision)
Tearaway (PlayStation Vita)
Sonic The Hedgehog (as part of SEGA 3D Classics on 3DS)
CarmaGeddoN (PlayStation)
The classic CarmaGeddoN, PSX version, awesome.
Super Mario Bros. (Entertainment System)
Wario's Woods (Entertainment System)
A puzzle game where you play as Toad. Bombs drop from above and you have to combine them with creatures to clear the area before the ceiling lowers down and crushes you. It's pretty good, sure beats a lot of other similar puzzle games from back then.
Wario's Woods (Super Nintendo)
The Entertainment System game of the same name with a Super Mario Allstars makeover.
Sudoku portable LCD game
Sudoku
just regular Sudoku on paper
Bomb Jack (SG-1000)
Perhaps not the best version of Bomb Jack ever, but a good and enjoyable one for sure.
CastleVania Legends (Game Boy)
I love this game, it's very tough but also very enjoyable. Sonia is best Belmont origin canon.
Rubik's Cube
trained and learned how to solve one in real life, my fastest time solving a cube from scrambled to all sides complete as of this post is 2m21s
Rubik's Puzzle World (DS, played on 3DS)
After having learned how to solve a Rubik's Cube in real life on an actual cube I was able to solve it in this game with a time of 4:45, which is twice as long than I can do it in real life (fastest time as of typing this in 2:21) but it's far less intuitive and much clunkier with the low res and highly inaccurate touch screen control of a DS/3DS, so I still think it's a very good time for someone who just learned how to do it.
Auto Racing (Intellivision)
just playing some awesome Intellivision games again
BurgerTime! (Intellivision)
Centipede (Intellivision)
Defender (Intellivision)
Pac-Man (Intellivision)
Popeye (Intellivision)
Q*bert (Intellivision)
Scooby Doo's Maze Chase (Intellivision)
this was a new one for me, another good maze game (aka "Pac-Man clone"), very typical for the time
Nightlong Union City Conspiracy (PC)
also playing some nostalgic PC point and click games, it's not a genre I like but it has a handful games I love
The C.H.A.O.S. Continuum (PC)
The Colonel's Bequest A Laura Bow Mystery (PC)
Ninja Gaiden (Master System)
Total Drivin (PlayStation)
Super Mario Bros. 3 (Entertainment System)
Sonic The Hedgehog 3 (Mega Drive)
it's been ages since I played this, I usually just play the original Sonic The Hedgehog, Sonic CD or Sonic & Knuckles or the old classics, the rest I only play a bit sporadically, sometimes a lot and then not at all for long stretches of time
Samurai Showdown (Mega Drive)
another one I haven't played it ages, I think it was last in the early 2000s on PC, the MS-DOS version
Time Trax (Mega Drive, prototype rom)
an odd platformer with some slow motion time manipulation power, it's pretty good but it's only a prototype, I don't think it ever was released as a full retail version sadly, it's not bad at all and feels pretty much complete, it's far better than many games that did come out back in the day
Scooby-Doo Mystery (Mega Drive)
an awful point and click mystery solving adventure game starring Scooby-Doo and Shaggy, with the rest of the gang being absent during the game only to be part of the intros and outros of the two mysteries the game has to offer. it's slow, clunky, illogical, unintuitive and arbitrary as fuck, the only way to solve a vast majority of the "puzzles" is to try every possible combination until you randomly find the correct thing to do, except for a handful thing you do there really is no thought, logic, rhyme or reason to anything else in the entire game, you will get stuck, a lot, and it's not your fault, the game is just extremely poorly designed, it looks very nice with good level of detail, nice animation and such, and the audio is fine as well, but damn, the gameplay just brutally murders the entire experience, just play this with a guide from the beginning if you ever try it out, and save yourself the headache
Tom & Jerry Frantic Antics (Mega Drive)
holy fucknuts this game is awful, it looks bad, sounds horrible and plays worse than just about anything else ever made, it's nothing short of a travesti it got released in this condition
Steel Talons (Mega Drive)
River Raid (Intellivision)
Thursday, June 22, 2017
TV Broken
Welp, my old SDTV broke yesterday, it makes this weird noise and blinks red with the power indicator. It may be fixable, I dunno. And this just a few days after my 32X was having issues with the sound. Until I get my TV fixed or replaced I'm going to have to resort to alternative ways to see my games, I have my PSP and Vita for remote play on PS3 but that's far from ideal, my best bet is probably to use my USB video grabbers with composite or S-video cables, it may come with a bit of lag and loss of quality in the conversion process but it's better than nothing, at least for now. I also have a couple of smaller older TVs but they are 50hz only and lack most of the cable connections, I think they either have RF only or possibly RF and mono composite on one of them.
Thursday, May 4, 2017
Gaming Purchases - May 2017
May 4th:
Picked up the games I ordered online last week as they arrived today.
All games are used copies, complete with box and manual, unless otherwise stated.
V-Rally and Eagle One Harrier Attack are in a double pack with both games in one box.
Mega Drive:
Summer Challenge
Zero Tolerance
PlayStation:
Blast Radius (no manual)
Eagle One Harrier Attack
MTV Sports: Pure Ride
Star Trek Invasion
Street Racer
Truck Racing
V-Rally
Vagrant Story (promo disc, no manual)
PlayStation 2:
Hot Wheels World Race
Carmen Sandiego: The Secret of the Stolen Drums
Crashed
Crazy Frog Racer 2
Crazy Taxi
Motorsiege: Warriors of Primetime
Speed Kings
In the Crazy Taxi box there is a folder tucked in with the manual advertising other games from Acclaim (as they were the ones that ported Crazy Taxi to PS2), and among the games listed is Zombie Revenge for PS2 which sadly got cancelled worldwide before release. I sure would've loved a PS2 port now that I can't play it on Dreamcast anymore. I miss Zombie Revenge.
Teh update of an sadness:
The V-Rally disc is damaged on the data side of the disc and doesn't play. The other games all work fine, but damn, I really wanted to play V-Rally, I even warmed up for it by playing Sega Rally Championship on PC and Colin McRae Rally on PlayStation yesterday, getting myself into the proper mid-to-late 90s rally mood. Bummer. :c
Another update, semi-sad, semi-odd:
Seems MTV Sports Pure Ride also doesn't work.. on PS2. It works just fine on PS3 though. I've had the opposite happen many times as PS3 has really bad PSX emulation but for once it did it better than PS2 which has partial original PSX hardware in it, so how it's less compatible than a PS3 I dunno, it makes no sense.
Another update, really weird now:
V-Rally, with the literally see-through scratches on the disc, works on PS3 now... I'm literally playing V-Rally right now even though the disc is damaged beyond repair and shouldn't work at all. Am I in the Twilight Zone?
May 24th:
Picked up the games I ordered online last week as they arrived today.
All games are used copies, complete with box and manual, unless otherwise stated.
Because of how the copy of V-Rally I got earlier this month didn't work properly on my PS2, I ordered a separate copy now that I've tested out, and it works, so that's good at least.
I also ordered a separate copy of Eagle One Harrier Attack because I felt like it.
PlayStation:
Eagle One Harrier Attack
Formula One Arcade
Time Crisis Project Titan (promo disc, no manual)
V-Rally (Platinum)
V-Rally 2
WRC Arcade
PlayStation 2:
Kill.Switch (promo disc, no manual)
Picked up the games I ordered online last week as they arrived today.
All games are used copies, complete with box and manual, unless otherwise stated.
V-Rally and Eagle One Harrier Attack are in a double pack with both games in one box.
Mega Drive:
Summer Challenge
Zero Tolerance
PlayStation:
Blast Radius (no manual)
Eagle One Harrier Attack
MTV Sports: Pure Ride
Star Trek Invasion
Street Racer
Truck Racing
V-Rally
Vagrant Story (promo disc, no manual)
PlayStation 2:
Hot Wheels World Race
Carmen Sandiego: The Secret of the Stolen Drums
Crashed
Crazy Frog Racer 2
Crazy Taxi
Motorsiege: Warriors of Primetime
Speed Kings
In the Crazy Taxi box there is a folder tucked in with the manual advertising other games from Acclaim (as they were the ones that ported Crazy Taxi to PS2), and among the games listed is Zombie Revenge for PS2 which sadly got cancelled worldwide before release. I sure would've loved a PS2 port now that I can't play it on Dreamcast anymore. I miss Zombie Revenge.
Teh update of an sadness:
The V-Rally disc is damaged on the data side of the disc and doesn't play. The other games all work fine, but damn, I really wanted to play V-Rally, I even warmed up for it by playing Sega Rally Championship on PC and Colin McRae Rally on PlayStation yesterday, getting myself into the proper mid-to-late 90s rally mood. Bummer. :c
Another update, semi-sad, semi-odd:
Seems MTV Sports Pure Ride also doesn't work.. on PS2. It works just fine on PS3 though. I've had the opposite happen many times as PS3 has really bad PSX emulation but for once it did it better than PS2 which has partial original PSX hardware in it, so how it's less compatible than a PS3 I dunno, it makes no sense.
Another update, really weird now:
V-Rally, with the literally see-through scratches on the disc, works on PS3 now... I'm literally playing V-Rally right now even though the disc is damaged beyond repair and shouldn't work at all. Am I in the Twilight Zone?
May 24th:
Picked up the games I ordered online last week as they arrived today.
All games are used copies, complete with box and manual, unless otherwise stated.
Because of how the copy of V-Rally I got earlier this month didn't work properly on my PS2, I ordered a separate copy now that I've tested out, and it works, so that's good at least.
I also ordered a separate copy of Eagle One Harrier Attack because I felt like it.
PlayStation:
Eagle One Harrier Attack
Formula One Arcade
Time Crisis Project Titan (promo disc, no manual)
V-Rally (Platinum)
V-Rally 2
WRC Arcade
PlayStation 2:
Kill.Switch (promo disc, no manual)
Tuesday, May 2, 2017
Now Playing - Maj 2017
Staring off this month with some rally games while waiting for the games I ordered near the end of April to arrive, also the daily dose of Smart As....
Smart As... (PlayStation Vita)
The Legend of Zelda Ocarina of Time (Nintendo 64)
Sega Rally Championship (PC)
It has speed issues on newer PCs so thankfully I found a patch with a frame capture program that hijacks the framerate and forces it to play at the correct speed, or at least as close to it at possible, and it works great for both the original version and the Direct3D enhanced version.
It's great fun and with the Lancia Stratos car and Lake Side track unlocked there's even more content to have fun with.
Three cars and four tracks is still less than what for example Virtua Racing Deluxe on 32X has, but it's a step up from the initial two cars and three tracks you begin with.
What's important in a rally game however is how it plays, and for one of the earliest 3D rally games ever made it plays great, the handling is intuitive and responsive and powersliding around corners feels very right. It has the benefit of being an arcade rally game rather than a purebred rally sim, so the gameplay has barely aged at all and it's still a treat to play as a direct result of this.
The early pixelated 3D visuals are charming, to the point where I actually find myself playing the original version more than the Direct3D enhanced version.
Colin McRae Rally (PlayStation)
Still a great game, if a bit dated by modern standards for rally sim games. It's got a nice selection of cars and lots of tracks to drive on, it handles very well with intuitive controls and has good driving physics for the time.
It has real-time dynamic damage modeling and a nice dynamic shadow similar to the shadows in Gran Turismo 3, Concept 2002 Tokyo-Geneva and 4 on PlayStation 2, making it look very nice at times.
Summer Challenge (Mega Drive)
The summer equivalent to Winter Challenge, with the same flat-shaded 3D graphics and similar events to play.
A rather typical button mashing and timing based gameplay type of sports game. One of the few types of sports games I kind of like, as long as they're not too awful. I like both Winter and Summer Challenge, the flat-shaded 3D polygonal visuals set them apart from all the rest and tugs very hard at my heartstrings, I love it.
Zero Tolerance (Mega Drive)
A 3D first person shooter in similar vain to Wolfenstein 3D and Doom but with a more open gameplay style where you can travel back to the previous levels to pick up health or ammo if there's any left to be found. It's got some really cool effects like blood splatters on the walls and drips down if you take out an enemy close enough, very nice. It's incredibly tough though, a very hard game. You select from a team of playable characters and when one dies you pick another until there are no more left.
Kawasaki Superbikes (Mega Drive)
Truck Racing (PlayStation)
A basic little budget truck racing game from Midas, it's lacking in content with only one truck model with a few different texture swaps and is singleplayer only, but it's got some really nice visuals overall, with high detail textures and a good amount of stuff on screen with a fair bit of draw distance all running at a high framerate, it also controls very well and is very fast, it's an arcade racer more than a sim racer, that's for sure. For a low budget game of that generation I think it does a good job.
Eagle One Harrier Attack (PlayStation)
An overlooked and underrated flight sim action game similar to the Ace Combat series, especially Ace Combat 3 Electrosphere, but you have a VTOL Harrier jump jet that can hover and strafe in mid air making it way more tactical and versatile than anything you got to pilot in Ace Combat 3.
I think there are other places to fly as well but i haven't gotten far into it yet to know for sure.
Street Racer (PlayStation)
A super-multiplatform kart racer released on Game Boy, Mega Drive, Super Nintendo, Saturn and Playstation.
It's nothing spectacular, just a solid kart racer from the mid 90s, but it's by Vivid Image, the same developer that would later make my all-time favorite kart racer S.C.A.R.S., so it's interesting to see some of their earlier attempts at the genre. I've played all the other versions except the Saturn one, which is similar to the PlayStation game but with less 3D geometry and more sprite-based stuff in the background instead, many consider the Saturn version to be the best of them all because of how much road-side stuff it has but I think the PlayStation version is good too and feels like the most next-gen version of them all, being the only one with proper 3D levels, even if they're a bit empty and barren compared to the Saturn version. Good game though and it has some cool stuff in it, even if it's a bit simplistic.
MTV Sports Pure Ride (PlayStation, playing on PlayStation 3)
Not the huge step up from the predecessor MTV Sports Snowboarding I was hoping for, but the snow texture is without a doubt the best I've seen from this generation and easily rivals and even beats most next-gen snowboard games.
It's mostly on par with the previous game in all other aspects, which is fine as that was a great game and remains my all-time favorite snowboard game, but it feels a bit too similar overall. If you have one, you don't need the other, they're both great and I'm glad to have them though.
Sadly the disc was damaged and didn't play properly on anything other than my PS3, which isn't the same thing as it emulates it and lacks the enhancements a PS2 offers when playing PSX games.
V-Rally (PlayStation, playing on PlayStation 3)
This one usually gets a bad rep for having strange controls, but honestly once you configure them to have the correct amount of over- or understeer and suspension setup it becomes just as playable and enjoyable as any other racing game. The driving physics are a little unique but it only takes a moment to get used to.
It's great looking for the time it was released and looks good still, and the physics engine is actually quite impressive, making for some spectacular crashes you'd never be able to see in Sega Rally or Colin McRae Rally, that's for sure.
It has a nice selection of cars that all have a unique feel and need to be adjusted with their own setup for all the different types of tracks to perform optimally, the tracks themselves are plenty and varied and there's a split-screen 2-player mode.
It was a popular game back in the day and a classic for us who remember it, sadly it's become very underrated as time's gone by, with most modern gamers not giving it a proper chance due to how it initially plays and handles, before you tweak the car settings, judging it by a quick test run and deeming it bad because they couldn't instantly control the car like a seasoned pro thinking it's automatically set up for them in advance, the spoiled little shits, but they're the ones who miss out on a great classic at the end of the day, so the joke's on them.
Sadly this disc was also damaged and didn't play properly on anything other than my PS3, just like MTV Pure Ride.
Crazy Taxi (PlayStation 2)
A flawless port of the Dreamcast version and I have no negatives to report, it's exactly how I remember it and since my Dreamcast is broken it's great to be able to play this on PS2.
Blast Radius (PlayStation)
A spaceship action sim game by the legendary Psygnosis, and it shows, sporting some of the best looking visuals on the system, as is usually the case with Psygnosis games, and it plays great with a high level of challenge, again nothing usual for their games. It's similar to most other great space games, like the Colony Wars series, Stellar Assault, G-Police, Star Trek Invasion and StarLancer.
You pick a ship, play through missions and upgrade the ship with upgrades you can buy with the credits you earn during the missions.
It looks great and runs silky smooth with really great controls making it easy to do enjoy dog fighting other spaceships in zero gravity, it's a treat to play and seems to be somewhat of a forgotten classic nowadays.
Vagrant Story (PlayStation)
A complex dungeon crawling semi-action RPG. Very unique, great looking and with good cinematography. The gameplay and battle system is a unique mix of real-time movement and RPG menus, kind of like a mix between Grandia, Granstream Saga, Koudelka and Parasite Eve, it's hard to explain without going into extreme detail, and I haven't played it enough yet to understand it all myself anyway, so even if I wanted to I couldn't, but you play as one character only and you fight enemies directly around you like an action game, there are no random battle encounters and enemies can be avoided entirely. There's a risk system where the higher the risk meter goes the more dangerous the game gets, as your character gets weaker, misses attacks more often and enemies can land critical hits on you a lot easier, so there's a lot to keep in mind and balance at the same time in this game. It's definitely not a game you jump into with ease, the learning curve is aimed at the most committed harcore gamers and everyone else is just gonna have to deal with it.
Crashed! (PlayStation 2)
A rather underwhelming Destruction Derby clone, sans racing. It controls fine and looks okay, it's a bit choppy due to bad 50hz conversion, but other than that it runs smooth enough.
You start with just two cars and a handful of arenas to play in, but I guess you can unlock more if you play more, there's so little to do to begin with and that sure as fuck isn't making me wanna play more, it's boring, I wanna have fun straight out of the box with a game like this, and this one is unusually locked down for the time it was released, other games had WAY more to offer, both initially and in total from what I've been able to make out from the back of the box and the manual.
The complete lack of any type of racing makes it even worse as I love Destruction Derby style racing.
It boasts about the most realistic damage physics engine ever on the back of the box, and while I think the deformation of the cars after crashing look pretty good there were still plenty of other games at that point, 2004, that were a lot more advanced and look a lot better in those regards, so I call bullshit on that claim.
Motorsiege Warriors of Primetime (PlayStation 2)
A vehicle combat game stating a bold "best vehicle combat game on PS2 yet" on the back of the box. I was of course hesitant to trust such boastful words, even if it is a 2003 game, especially when they were coming from a so called "leading games journalist" named Andy Roberts, who I could find nothing about when I searched for his name online.
The game also doesn't have any sex appeal despite having some other types of over-the-top designed characters, they even have vampires, but no sexy babes, the only female character in the game at all is and old granny, so it relies entirely on being a good game to play, an either very confident and well backed up decision or a very foolish one.
Thankfully I can report it plays great and is a lot of fun. The claim about being the best vehicle combat game on PS2 at the time may very well be true as at the time the only competitor I can recall is Twisted Metal Black really, which sucked ass here in Europe due to extreme censorship and total butchering of the game following the 2001 September 11th World Trade Center thing with the airplanes.
Anyway, you pick from an array of hovercars to use, there are several different play styles, ranging from classics such as deathmatch to team based events, and lots of different levels to pick from, and the weapons and other other pickups are scattered all over the levels and regenerate as you play.
It runs fast and smooth and looks good with a nice amount of detail and special effects with no popup and the levels you play in are huge in size.
There needs to be quite a lot of action on screen before the framerate gets a bit choppy, but it never gets too bad even at worst.
Sadly I've discovered some issues with the game that annoy me quite a bit, mainly the fact that the AI is completely retarded, like in team play your teammates will attack you at random when no enemies are around, and in general they seem to be confused about if you're on their team or not, more often than not strafing around you without shooting as if you look at you in a "Gee, I wonder if this guy is on our side or not?" kind of way, all while the actual enemies are also there attacking both you and the teammate idiots circling around you. There have also been some errors in the scoring after a game is won/lost with points going into the multi-billion negatives, keep in mind the game scores 100 points for a kill or a goal (there is a mode called Siege, similar to deathmatch/team deathmatch but with a ball you pick up and take to a goal that moves around after each score for added points) and you don't get negative points for killing yourself. or your teammates.
Regardless of the issues I think the good stuff is good enough to make up for it.
I've actually been interested in this game for ages but I never thought it seemed interesting enough in stores and there was little to no information about it online, so I sadly never bothered to buy a copy until now, and even now it was still a gamble as I still didn't know much about it.
Now that I finally have it, I'm glad I do.
Speed Kings (PlayStation 2)
A motorcycle racing game with stunt tricks and fighting, very similar to games like Road Rash and Mashed, it's smooth and fast with some minor stutter in the framerate when things get hectic crashing into traffic and other riders and such, looks nice and plays very well, if a bit wobbly at times.
Hot Wheels World Race (PlayStation 2)
A very nice futuristic combat racer similar to games like Extreme G, RollCage, Speed Racer and of course WipEout. Looks great, runs silky smooth, has great track design and the cars are based on some of the Hot Wheels toys at the time and I think the game ties in with an animated series but I haven't seen it so I can't verify that.
Crazy Frog Racer 2 (PlayStation 2)
Another futuristic racing game with weapon pickups, this one features the internet meme turned music video turned short-lived franchise and has a cast of characters, some new made for the games and some from the music videos, like "the annoying thing" crazy frog and the big red robot drone that chases the annoying thing.
It plays fairly well, it's fast and colorful and has a few different modes to play, along with a couple of minigames and the music videos for variation.
It's weird, the first music video is censored, the annoying thing's dick is visible in the original version but has a big blur over it now, but in the second video it's fully visible with no censorship at all, you can clearly see his dick.
I took a look online at what kind of scores this game had gotten and most gave it 2/10, I can honestly say it's far better than that, it is by no means a second worse possible type of game, I'd say it's even pretty good, especially considering what it originates from and the low expectations I had for it.
One of the other modes aside racing is a chase mode where you get chased by drones, like in the original music video, and see how far you can get, you take damage if you fall off the course or if the drones hit you with their weapons and traps.
The two minigames available is a dance game and a pinball game, th4e dancing game is very typical, just press the buttons at the right time to the rhythm of the song, I suck at it as always with rhythm games but I managed to beat the easy mode with a perfect score so I think for once a rhythm game has an easy mode that actually wasn't impossibly hard, so kudos for realizing not everyone is born with a natural sense of rhythm, I appreciate that. The pinball game is not your typical pinball though as there are no flippers, instead when the ball comes to a stop you have a few times that you can get it rolling again while an arrow rotates around it, time it right and you'll go where you want, the goal is to take out all the robot drones scattered around the pinball stage and there are walls and obstacles that slow you down as well as bumpers that make you go faster, I don't like pinball games in general but this was okay, not bad at all.
Carmen Sandiego The Secret of the Stolen Drums (PlayStation 2)
A rather mediocre action platformer where you play as Cole, a rookie ACME agent trying to hunt down and capture Carmen, turns out all the other agents have been fooled into looking for her in Siberia while Cole is right on her track on the other side of the world, and that's where the game begins, you sneak around, avoiding Carmen's robots and follow her tracks trying to catch her. I haven't gotten very far yet but the biggest problem are the controls, especially the camera, it also doesn't look very impressive, very bland and uninspired, the overall quality is similar to an old PlayStation game. The next place you visit is at least a bit better looking. This is the first Carmen Sandiego game I've ever played so I'm going into this with little to no bias about how it should be compared to the older games, just thought I'd mention that.
Star Trek Invasion (PlayStation)
A great spaceship action sim game and arguably the best Star Trek game ever made. It's like Blast Radius and the rest I mentioned earlier, only with a Star Trek license, with the voices of Picard and Worf and everything else you'd expect really. Apparently it's made by the same team that made the Colony Wars games and it uses the same game engine that Colony Wars Red Sun uses, so it's no wonder it looks and plays as great as it does.
Alone In The Dark Inferno (PlayStation 3)
Finally trying out the PS3 version of this game, it's said to be the best version because it was released later and had multiple things worked on a bit longer to make them less glitchy and stuff. I originally played through it on PS2 back in the day when it was new and more recently on Xbox 360, and while it's a flawed game for sure but it never got unplayable on either of those consoles in my opinion, so this should be good.
Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles IV Turtles In Time (Super Nintendo)
A port of the arcade game with some minor stuff added and some minor stuff removed, overall a good port.
Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles The Hyperstone Heist (Mega Drive)
Basically an alternative remixed version of Turtles In Time but with an arguably better story, faster and more responsive gameplay with better controls, with some additional exclusive content added and the time travel stuff, sprite scaling effects and mode-7 effects and levels removed.
This is my favorite version of the game as it adds stuff I like and removed stuff I didn't like as much.
Crash Bandicoot The Wrath of Cortex (Xbox, playing on Xbox 360)
The original PlayStation 2 version is better than this, it has better lighting, better special effects, runs smoother and has better controls, the rest of the problems, I mean game, is still present however, with all the gameplay issues, level design issues, character design issues, enemy design issues, boss battle design issues, control issues, story issues and so on, it's all in here, made even worse by how it's a downgraded port of the PS2 game.
inFAMOUS (PlayStation 3)
It's literally a clunky Sly Cooper game with humans and ugly "realistic" visuals set in a bigger and slightly more expansive city environment, that's all that needs to be said really. The electric powers are okay but not utilized anywhere near as good as they should've been and work more like generic superpowers in general than specifically electrical powers. It's also glitchy as fuck in more ways than one. It can be fun to play but when the problems gang up on you it just sucks all the fun out of it and it becomes a frustrating experience instead.
V-Rally (PlayStation)
I ordered another copy of the regular Platinum version to play as the previous one I got didn't work properly, so it's all good now, this one works just fine and plays without issues. The reason I got the Platinum version again is because the original release of V-Rally didn't support Dual Shock and Dual Analog features and there's a new car added exclusively to the Platinum version.
V-Rally 2 (PlayStation)
It's less like the original V-Rally and more like many next gen rally games on PS2 and Xbox like the several Colin McRae Rally sequels, the WRC series and RalliSport Challenge 1 and 2, but that's not a bad thing as those games are some of the best rally games out there.
WRC Arcade (PlayStation)
Similar to V-Rally 2 it has more in common with next gen rally games like the rest of the WRC series than older ones like V-Rally or Sega Rally, despite being subtitled "Arcade" it's definitely a lot closer to being a regular rally sim. It's a bit hard to control compared to the other rally games I've been playing lately, with notably less grip in the cars' handling, making it near impossible not to slide into the walls in almost every single corner.
Formula One Arcade (PlayStation)
Essentially an F1 game with pickups like a kart racer, it's a little choppy in the framerate but that's the only real complaint.
Time Crisis Project Titan (PlayStation)
I don't have a lightgun and the controls weren't that great with a normal or Dual Shock controller when I tested it so I probably won't play this game much.
Kill.Switch (PlayStation 2)
The game that spawned the subgenre of third person shooters focused on cover-based gameplay that games like Gears of War then made popular several years later. It really feels like a modern third person shooter because of this, it's hard to imagine it came out in 2003 already. Namco did a great job with the gameplay mechanics.
Kill.Switch (Game Boy Advance)
Overall a very good port considering it's on such insanely weak hardware compared to the normal console version, it's in full textured 3D, it's a third person cover-based shooter and it runs well, the controls are a bit unconventional but they work well enough to get the job done.
Sega Rally Championship (Saturn)
It's actually better than the PC port in several ways, mostly minor graphical stuff but also sound effects and music.
Smart As... (PlayStation Vita)
The Legend of Zelda Ocarina of Time (Nintendo 64)
Sega Rally Championship (PC)
It has speed issues on newer PCs so thankfully I found a patch with a frame capture program that hijacks the framerate and forces it to play at the correct speed, or at least as close to it at possible, and it works great for both the original version and the Direct3D enhanced version.
It's great fun and with the Lancia Stratos car and Lake Side track unlocked there's even more content to have fun with.
Three cars and four tracks is still less than what for example Virtua Racing Deluxe on 32X has, but it's a step up from the initial two cars and three tracks you begin with.
What's important in a rally game however is how it plays, and for one of the earliest 3D rally games ever made it plays great, the handling is intuitive and responsive and powersliding around corners feels very right. It has the benefit of being an arcade rally game rather than a purebred rally sim, so the gameplay has barely aged at all and it's still a treat to play as a direct result of this.
The early pixelated 3D visuals are charming, to the point where I actually find myself playing the original version more than the Direct3D enhanced version.
Colin McRae Rally (PlayStation)
Still a great game, if a bit dated by modern standards for rally sim games. It's got a nice selection of cars and lots of tracks to drive on, it handles very well with intuitive controls and has good driving physics for the time.
It has real-time dynamic damage modeling and a nice dynamic shadow similar to the shadows in Gran Turismo 3, Concept 2002 Tokyo-Geneva and 4 on PlayStation 2, making it look very nice at times.
Summer Challenge (Mega Drive)
The summer equivalent to Winter Challenge, with the same flat-shaded 3D graphics and similar events to play.
A rather typical button mashing and timing based gameplay type of sports game. One of the few types of sports games I kind of like, as long as they're not too awful. I like both Winter and Summer Challenge, the flat-shaded 3D polygonal visuals set them apart from all the rest and tugs very hard at my heartstrings, I love it.
Zero Tolerance (Mega Drive)
A 3D first person shooter in similar vain to Wolfenstein 3D and Doom but with a more open gameplay style where you can travel back to the previous levels to pick up health or ammo if there's any left to be found. It's got some really cool effects like blood splatters on the walls and drips down if you take out an enemy close enough, very nice. It's incredibly tough though, a very hard game. You select from a team of playable characters and when one dies you pick another until there are no more left.
Kawasaki Superbikes (Mega Drive)
Truck Racing (PlayStation)
A basic little budget truck racing game from Midas, it's lacking in content with only one truck model with a few different texture swaps and is singleplayer only, but it's got some really nice visuals overall, with high detail textures and a good amount of stuff on screen with a fair bit of draw distance all running at a high framerate, it also controls very well and is very fast, it's an arcade racer more than a sim racer, that's for sure. For a low budget game of that generation I think it does a good job.
Eagle One Harrier Attack (PlayStation)
An overlooked and underrated flight sim action game similar to the Ace Combat series, especially Ace Combat 3 Electrosphere, but you have a VTOL Harrier jump jet that can hover and strafe in mid air making it way more tactical and versatile than anything you got to pilot in Ace Combat 3.
I think there are other places to fly as well but i haven't gotten far into it yet to know for sure.
Street Racer (PlayStation)
A super-multiplatform kart racer released on Game Boy, Mega Drive, Super Nintendo, Saturn and Playstation.
It's nothing spectacular, just a solid kart racer from the mid 90s, but it's by Vivid Image, the same developer that would later make my all-time favorite kart racer S.C.A.R.S., so it's interesting to see some of their earlier attempts at the genre. I've played all the other versions except the Saturn one, which is similar to the PlayStation game but with less 3D geometry and more sprite-based stuff in the background instead, many consider the Saturn version to be the best of them all because of how much road-side stuff it has but I think the PlayStation version is good too and feels like the most next-gen version of them all, being the only one with proper 3D levels, even if they're a bit empty and barren compared to the Saturn version. Good game though and it has some cool stuff in it, even if it's a bit simplistic.
MTV Sports Pure Ride (PlayStation, playing on PlayStation 3)
Not the huge step up from the predecessor MTV Sports Snowboarding I was hoping for, but the snow texture is without a doubt the best I've seen from this generation and easily rivals and even beats most next-gen snowboard games.
It's mostly on par with the previous game in all other aspects, which is fine as that was a great game and remains my all-time favorite snowboard game, but it feels a bit too similar overall. If you have one, you don't need the other, they're both great and I'm glad to have them though.
Sadly the disc was damaged and didn't play properly on anything other than my PS3, which isn't the same thing as it emulates it and lacks the enhancements a PS2 offers when playing PSX games.
V-Rally (PlayStation, playing on PlayStation 3)
This one usually gets a bad rep for having strange controls, but honestly once you configure them to have the correct amount of over- or understeer and suspension setup it becomes just as playable and enjoyable as any other racing game. The driving physics are a little unique but it only takes a moment to get used to.
It's great looking for the time it was released and looks good still, and the physics engine is actually quite impressive, making for some spectacular crashes you'd never be able to see in Sega Rally or Colin McRae Rally, that's for sure.
It has a nice selection of cars that all have a unique feel and need to be adjusted with their own setup for all the different types of tracks to perform optimally, the tracks themselves are plenty and varied and there's a split-screen 2-player mode.
It was a popular game back in the day and a classic for us who remember it, sadly it's become very underrated as time's gone by, with most modern gamers not giving it a proper chance due to how it initially plays and handles, before you tweak the car settings, judging it by a quick test run and deeming it bad because they couldn't instantly control the car like a seasoned pro thinking it's automatically set up for them in advance, the spoiled little shits, but they're the ones who miss out on a great classic at the end of the day, so the joke's on them.
Sadly this disc was also damaged and didn't play properly on anything other than my PS3, just like MTV Pure Ride.
Crazy Taxi (PlayStation 2)
A flawless port of the Dreamcast version and I have no negatives to report, it's exactly how I remember it and since my Dreamcast is broken it's great to be able to play this on PS2.
Blast Radius (PlayStation)
A spaceship action sim game by the legendary Psygnosis, and it shows, sporting some of the best looking visuals on the system, as is usually the case with Psygnosis games, and it plays great with a high level of challenge, again nothing usual for their games. It's similar to most other great space games, like the Colony Wars series, Stellar Assault, G-Police, Star Trek Invasion and StarLancer.
You pick a ship, play through missions and upgrade the ship with upgrades you can buy with the credits you earn during the missions.
It looks great and runs silky smooth with really great controls making it easy to do enjoy dog fighting other spaceships in zero gravity, it's a treat to play and seems to be somewhat of a forgotten classic nowadays.
Vagrant Story (PlayStation)
A complex dungeon crawling semi-action RPG. Very unique, great looking and with good cinematography. The gameplay and battle system is a unique mix of real-time movement and RPG menus, kind of like a mix between Grandia, Granstream Saga, Koudelka and Parasite Eve, it's hard to explain without going into extreme detail, and I haven't played it enough yet to understand it all myself anyway, so even if I wanted to I couldn't, but you play as one character only and you fight enemies directly around you like an action game, there are no random battle encounters and enemies can be avoided entirely. There's a risk system where the higher the risk meter goes the more dangerous the game gets, as your character gets weaker, misses attacks more often and enemies can land critical hits on you a lot easier, so there's a lot to keep in mind and balance at the same time in this game. It's definitely not a game you jump into with ease, the learning curve is aimed at the most committed harcore gamers and everyone else is just gonna have to deal with it.
Crashed! (PlayStation 2)
A rather underwhelming Destruction Derby clone, sans racing. It controls fine and looks okay, it's a bit choppy due to bad 50hz conversion, but other than that it runs smooth enough.
You start with just two cars and a handful of arenas to play in, but I guess you can unlock more if you play more, there's so little to do to begin with and that sure as fuck isn't making me wanna play more, it's boring, I wanna have fun straight out of the box with a game like this, and this one is unusually locked down for the time it was released, other games had WAY more to offer, both initially and in total from what I've been able to make out from the back of the box and the manual.
The complete lack of any type of racing makes it even worse as I love Destruction Derby style racing.
It boasts about the most realistic damage physics engine ever on the back of the box, and while I think the deformation of the cars after crashing look pretty good there were still plenty of other games at that point, 2004, that were a lot more advanced and look a lot better in those regards, so I call bullshit on that claim.
Motorsiege Warriors of Primetime (PlayStation 2)
A vehicle combat game stating a bold "best vehicle combat game on PS2 yet" on the back of the box. I was of course hesitant to trust such boastful words, even if it is a 2003 game, especially when they were coming from a so called "leading games journalist" named Andy Roberts, who I could find nothing about when I searched for his name online.
The game also doesn't have any sex appeal despite having some other types of over-the-top designed characters, they even have vampires, but no sexy babes, the only female character in the game at all is and old granny, so it relies entirely on being a good game to play, an either very confident and well backed up decision or a very foolish one.
Thankfully I can report it plays great and is a lot of fun. The claim about being the best vehicle combat game on PS2 at the time may very well be true as at the time the only competitor I can recall is Twisted Metal Black really, which sucked ass here in Europe due to extreme censorship and total butchering of the game following the 2001 September 11th World Trade Center thing with the airplanes.
Anyway, you pick from an array of hovercars to use, there are several different play styles, ranging from classics such as deathmatch to team based events, and lots of different levels to pick from, and the weapons and other other pickups are scattered all over the levels and regenerate as you play.
It runs fast and smooth and looks good with a nice amount of detail and special effects with no popup and the levels you play in are huge in size.
There needs to be quite a lot of action on screen before the framerate gets a bit choppy, but it never gets too bad even at worst.
Sadly I've discovered some issues with the game that annoy me quite a bit, mainly the fact that the AI is completely retarded, like in team play your teammates will attack you at random when no enemies are around, and in general they seem to be confused about if you're on their team or not, more often than not strafing around you without shooting as if you look at you in a "Gee, I wonder if this guy is on our side or not?" kind of way, all while the actual enemies are also there attacking both you and the teammate idiots circling around you. There have also been some errors in the scoring after a game is won/lost with points going into the multi-billion negatives, keep in mind the game scores 100 points for a kill or a goal (there is a mode called Siege, similar to deathmatch/team deathmatch but with a ball you pick up and take to a goal that moves around after each score for added points) and you don't get negative points for killing yourself. or your teammates.
Regardless of the issues I think the good stuff is good enough to make up for it.
I've actually been interested in this game for ages but I never thought it seemed interesting enough in stores and there was little to no information about it online, so I sadly never bothered to buy a copy until now, and even now it was still a gamble as I still didn't know much about it.
Now that I finally have it, I'm glad I do.
Speed Kings (PlayStation 2)
A motorcycle racing game with stunt tricks and fighting, very similar to games like Road Rash and Mashed, it's smooth and fast with some minor stutter in the framerate when things get hectic crashing into traffic and other riders and such, looks nice and plays very well, if a bit wobbly at times.
Hot Wheels World Race (PlayStation 2)
A very nice futuristic combat racer similar to games like Extreme G, RollCage, Speed Racer and of course WipEout. Looks great, runs silky smooth, has great track design and the cars are based on some of the Hot Wheels toys at the time and I think the game ties in with an animated series but I haven't seen it so I can't verify that.
Crazy Frog Racer 2 (PlayStation 2)
Another futuristic racing game with weapon pickups, this one features the internet meme turned music video turned short-lived franchise and has a cast of characters, some new made for the games and some from the music videos, like "the annoying thing" crazy frog and the big red robot drone that chases the annoying thing.
It plays fairly well, it's fast and colorful and has a few different modes to play, along with a couple of minigames and the music videos for variation.
It's weird, the first music video is censored, the annoying thing's dick is visible in the original version but has a big blur over it now, but in the second video it's fully visible with no censorship at all, you can clearly see his dick.
I took a look online at what kind of scores this game had gotten and most gave it 2/10, I can honestly say it's far better than that, it is by no means a second worse possible type of game, I'd say it's even pretty good, especially considering what it originates from and the low expectations I had for it.
One of the other modes aside racing is a chase mode where you get chased by drones, like in the original music video, and see how far you can get, you take damage if you fall off the course or if the drones hit you with their weapons and traps.
The two minigames available is a dance game and a pinball game, th4e dancing game is very typical, just press the buttons at the right time to the rhythm of the song, I suck at it as always with rhythm games but I managed to beat the easy mode with a perfect score so I think for once a rhythm game has an easy mode that actually wasn't impossibly hard, so kudos for realizing not everyone is born with a natural sense of rhythm, I appreciate that. The pinball game is not your typical pinball though as there are no flippers, instead when the ball comes to a stop you have a few times that you can get it rolling again while an arrow rotates around it, time it right and you'll go where you want, the goal is to take out all the robot drones scattered around the pinball stage and there are walls and obstacles that slow you down as well as bumpers that make you go faster, I don't like pinball games in general but this was okay, not bad at all.
Carmen Sandiego The Secret of the Stolen Drums (PlayStation 2)
A rather mediocre action platformer where you play as Cole, a rookie ACME agent trying to hunt down and capture Carmen, turns out all the other agents have been fooled into looking for her in Siberia while Cole is right on her track on the other side of the world, and that's where the game begins, you sneak around, avoiding Carmen's robots and follow her tracks trying to catch her. I haven't gotten very far yet but the biggest problem are the controls, especially the camera, it also doesn't look very impressive, very bland and uninspired, the overall quality is similar to an old PlayStation game. The next place you visit is at least a bit better looking. This is the first Carmen Sandiego game I've ever played so I'm going into this with little to no bias about how it should be compared to the older games, just thought I'd mention that.
Star Trek Invasion (PlayStation)
A great spaceship action sim game and arguably the best Star Trek game ever made. It's like Blast Radius and the rest I mentioned earlier, only with a Star Trek license, with the voices of Picard and Worf and everything else you'd expect really. Apparently it's made by the same team that made the Colony Wars games and it uses the same game engine that Colony Wars Red Sun uses, so it's no wonder it looks and plays as great as it does.
Alone In The Dark Inferno (PlayStation 3)
Finally trying out the PS3 version of this game, it's said to be the best version because it was released later and had multiple things worked on a bit longer to make them less glitchy and stuff. I originally played through it on PS2 back in the day when it was new and more recently on Xbox 360, and while it's a flawed game for sure but it never got unplayable on either of those consoles in my opinion, so this should be good.
Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles IV Turtles In Time (Super Nintendo)
A port of the arcade game with some minor stuff added and some minor stuff removed, overall a good port.
Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles The Hyperstone Heist (Mega Drive)
Basically an alternative remixed version of Turtles In Time but with an arguably better story, faster and more responsive gameplay with better controls, with some additional exclusive content added and the time travel stuff, sprite scaling effects and mode-7 effects and levels removed.
This is my favorite version of the game as it adds stuff I like and removed stuff I didn't like as much.
Crash Bandicoot The Wrath of Cortex (Xbox, playing on Xbox 360)
The original PlayStation 2 version is better than this, it has better lighting, better special effects, runs smoother and has better controls, the rest of the problems, I mean game, is still present however, with all the gameplay issues, level design issues, character design issues, enemy design issues, boss battle design issues, control issues, story issues and so on, it's all in here, made even worse by how it's a downgraded port of the PS2 game.
inFAMOUS (PlayStation 3)
It's literally a clunky Sly Cooper game with humans and ugly "realistic" visuals set in a bigger and slightly more expansive city environment, that's all that needs to be said really. The electric powers are okay but not utilized anywhere near as good as they should've been and work more like generic superpowers in general than specifically electrical powers. It's also glitchy as fuck in more ways than one. It can be fun to play but when the problems gang up on you it just sucks all the fun out of it and it becomes a frustrating experience instead.
V-Rally (PlayStation)
I ordered another copy of the regular Platinum version to play as the previous one I got didn't work properly, so it's all good now, this one works just fine and plays without issues. The reason I got the Platinum version again is because the original release of V-Rally didn't support Dual Shock and Dual Analog features and there's a new car added exclusively to the Platinum version.
V-Rally 2 (PlayStation)
It's less like the original V-Rally and more like many next gen rally games on PS2 and Xbox like the several Colin McRae Rally sequels, the WRC series and RalliSport Challenge 1 and 2, but that's not a bad thing as those games are some of the best rally games out there.
WRC Arcade (PlayStation)
Similar to V-Rally 2 it has more in common with next gen rally games like the rest of the WRC series than older ones like V-Rally or Sega Rally, despite being subtitled "Arcade" it's definitely a lot closer to being a regular rally sim. It's a bit hard to control compared to the other rally games I've been playing lately, with notably less grip in the cars' handling, making it near impossible not to slide into the walls in almost every single corner.
Formula One Arcade (PlayStation)
Essentially an F1 game with pickups like a kart racer, it's a little choppy in the framerate but that's the only real complaint.
Time Crisis Project Titan (PlayStation)
I don't have a lightgun and the controls weren't that great with a normal or Dual Shock controller when I tested it so I probably won't play this game much.
Kill.Switch (PlayStation 2)
The game that spawned the subgenre of third person shooters focused on cover-based gameplay that games like Gears of War then made popular several years later. It really feels like a modern third person shooter because of this, it's hard to imagine it came out in 2003 already. Namco did a great job with the gameplay mechanics.
Kill.Switch (Game Boy Advance)
Overall a very good port considering it's on such insanely weak hardware compared to the normal console version, it's in full textured 3D, it's a third person cover-based shooter and it runs well, the controls are a bit unconventional but they work well enough to get the job done.
Sega Rally Championship (Saturn)
It's actually better than the PC port in several ways, mostly minor graphical stuff but also sound effects and music.
Tuesday, March 7, 2017
Now Playing - Mars 2017
Mars started off with watching lots of movies and not really playing a lot of games, but that all changed when I got myself a PlayStation Vita the 15th and the second half of the month has been gaming almost around the clock, mostly Sly Cooper Theieves in Time that I picked up on PS3 after having caught up on Vita. I've been playing them with parallel save files so I can compare every step in both versions, only one thing so far has stood out as different, the bow and arrow mission had you get 120 points to pass on PS3 but only 85 on Vita, making the mission on Vita much easier to compete, I actually had some trouble on PS3 and it took me several tries while on Vita I did it on the first try no problem, so it wasn't really harder on the Vita like I thought when i saw the lower number, they were just more lenient in that version it seems, which means the trophy you get for completing the challenge is also easier to get on Vita, seems a bit unbalanced but it's literally the only real different between the two versions outside of visuals I've found so far, the rest is virtually identical, at least in content, the controls are of course a little different but not enough that I'd say it makes an actual difference, it really does feel like I'm playing the same game when I switch from one to the other, the visual difference is only noticeable for a few second than you get into the game and forget all about that and play on as normal.
Elasto Mania (PC)
Super Mario Bros. 2 (Entertainment System)
Loaded (PlayStation)
ReLoaded (PlayStation)
Baja Edge of Control (PlayStation 3)
SEGA Arcade Gallery (Game Boy Advance)
Sly Cooper Thieves in Time (PlayStation Vita)
Finally get to play this on Vita now that I have finally own a Vita. Content and gameplay wise it's on par with the PS3 version I'd say, I haven't noticed any real differences in those areas, be that for better or worse.. a great game still.
Visually is another topic entirely as the Vita version has a lot of visual stuff missing, like tons of small environment details, overall polygonal detail, environment shadows and lighting effects, the cel-shaded black outline effect on characters and enemies and a whole bunch of other minor special effects like the heat wave emanating from lit torches and such, it also runs at half the framerate, 30fps tops instead of the 60fps tops on PS3. It's funny how some items, especially the small treasures you pickpocket from enemies still retain the black cel-shaded outline, I guess they just forgot to remove all of it from the game.
The Vita version also lacks many language options, the biggest suprise being the complete lack of english in the version I got hold of, I wasn't playing it in english on PS3 but I do enjoy hearing the original voices in games, especially when the original is in english, so not having the option to do so on Vita is baffling, I can understand having other languages alongside english but removing the original language, especially when the original is english, is completely beyond me, and it's an extremely poor decision to say the very least.
Thankfully it contained the same language I play on PS3 so it works fine for me, but had someone who doesn't speak any of these languages bought this copy they would've been screwed as the only international option is so mysteriously missing.
Still, it's a great game and it's a good portable version of the beefier PS3 version for sure and because of the better motion sensors in the Vita some of the motion control stuff is actually a lot easier to do on Vita than they were on PS3 using the Dual Shock 3 controller, it's both more responsive and more accurate on Vita when using the tilt controls.
I actually had real problems with one specific mission in the third episode on PS3 where you had to do a bunch of minigames to train a character, Rocky montage style, and the controls were just so bad I kept failing and it was just awful, but on Vita I did it on the first try, it was a bit tricky but the controls did what I wanted and it was actually one of the easiest missions in the game at theta point because of it, unlike on PS3 where it remains the hardest part of the game so far.
Spy Hunter (PlayStation Vita)
I used to own and have played the older first remake for Xbox and PS2 and I have the sequel on Xbox as well, they were really good I thought, especially the sequel, and this is yet another remake in similar fashion and I like this one a lot too.
Reality Fighters (PlayStation Vita)
A fighting game where you use the camera to create a fighter and fight in augmented reality, it's good, similar to what Invizimals did back on PSP but on the next technical level, very nice.
Smart As... (PlayStation Vita)
Solve problems and such, it's fun, I like game like this, it's also narrated by John Cleese which is nice.
Tearaway (PlayStation Vita) I fell instantly in love with this, so adorable, I just wanna hug it, all of it. I love Tearaway.
Killzone Mercenary (PlayStation Vita)
I'm impressed by the visuals and it plays great, a worthy game of the Killzone name and so much better than 2 and 3 were on PS3.
Deception IV Blood Ties (PlayStation Vita)
An excellent successor to the fantastically brutal Trapt on PS2, as good on Vita as it is on PS3, and vice versa!
Sly Cooper Thieves in Time (PlayStation 3)
Jurassic Park Rampage Edition (Mega Drive)
After having seen MrBaffacake's review on Youtube I had to give this one a try.
Elasto Mania (PC)
Super Mario Bros. 2 (Entertainment System)
Loaded (PlayStation)
ReLoaded (PlayStation)
Baja Edge of Control (PlayStation 3)
SEGA Arcade Gallery (Game Boy Advance)
Sly Cooper Thieves in Time (PlayStation Vita)
Finally get to play this on Vita now that I have finally own a Vita. Content and gameplay wise it's on par with the PS3 version I'd say, I haven't noticed any real differences in those areas, be that for better or worse.. a great game still.
Visually is another topic entirely as the Vita version has a lot of visual stuff missing, like tons of small environment details, overall polygonal detail, environment shadows and lighting effects, the cel-shaded black outline effect on characters and enemies and a whole bunch of other minor special effects like the heat wave emanating from lit torches and such, it also runs at half the framerate, 30fps tops instead of the 60fps tops on PS3. It's funny how some items, especially the small treasures you pickpocket from enemies still retain the black cel-shaded outline, I guess they just forgot to remove all of it from the game.
The Vita version also lacks many language options, the biggest suprise being the complete lack of english in the version I got hold of, I wasn't playing it in english on PS3 but I do enjoy hearing the original voices in games, especially when the original is in english, so not having the option to do so on Vita is baffling, I can understand having other languages alongside english but removing the original language, especially when the original is english, is completely beyond me, and it's an extremely poor decision to say the very least.
Thankfully it contained the same language I play on PS3 so it works fine for me, but had someone who doesn't speak any of these languages bought this copy they would've been screwed as the only international option is so mysteriously missing.
Still, it's a great game and it's a good portable version of the beefier PS3 version for sure and because of the better motion sensors in the Vita some of the motion control stuff is actually a lot easier to do on Vita than they were on PS3 using the Dual Shock 3 controller, it's both more responsive and more accurate on Vita when using the tilt controls.
I actually had real problems with one specific mission in the third episode on PS3 where you had to do a bunch of minigames to train a character, Rocky montage style, and the controls were just so bad I kept failing and it was just awful, but on Vita I did it on the first try, it was a bit tricky but the controls did what I wanted and it was actually one of the easiest missions in the game at theta point because of it, unlike on PS3 where it remains the hardest part of the game so far.
Spy Hunter (PlayStation Vita)
I used to own and have played the older first remake for Xbox and PS2 and I have the sequel on Xbox as well, they were really good I thought, especially the sequel, and this is yet another remake in similar fashion and I like this one a lot too.
Reality Fighters (PlayStation Vita)
A fighting game where you use the camera to create a fighter and fight in augmented reality, it's good, similar to what Invizimals did back on PSP but on the next technical level, very nice.
Smart As... (PlayStation Vita)
Solve problems and such, it's fun, I like game like this, it's also narrated by John Cleese which is nice.
Tearaway (PlayStation Vita) I fell instantly in love with this, so adorable, I just wanna hug it, all of it. I love Tearaway.
Killzone Mercenary (PlayStation Vita)
I'm impressed by the visuals and it plays great, a worthy game of the Killzone name and so much better than 2 and 3 were on PS3.
Deception IV Blood Ties (PlayStation Vita)
An excellent successor to the fantastically brutal Trapt on PS2, as good on Vita as it is on PS3, and vice versa!
Sly Cooper Thieves in Time (PlayStation 3)
Jurassic Park Rampage Edition (Mega Drive)
After having seen MrBaffacake's review on Youtube I had to give this one a try.
Monday, January 2, 2017
Now Playing - Januari 2017
Started off the new year with Aladdin on Master System.
Aladdin (Master System)
Longplayed it for YouTube.
Part 1: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EREcLNavbVY
Part 2: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8fYwVHPGSh8
part 3: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KKo_Tz0RMSg
part 4: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4sWWYRwkZhY
GoldenEye 007 (Wii)
Awful controls with Classic Pro Controller, unplayable with Wiimote and Nunchuk, overall generic modern FPS garbage with shitty modern Daniel Craig pretending to be James Bond.
Retro Force (PlayStation)
beat it on easy with 3126600 points, 12 januari 2017
Mercury (PlayStation Portable)
Armorines Project S.W.A.R.M. (Nintendo 64)
MTV Snowboarding (PlayStation)
Fade to Black (PlayStation)
Syphon Filter The Omega Strain (PlayStation 2)
Syphon Filter (PlayStation)
This game holds up so good even today, I love it. Tasing enemies til they burn and die is endlessly satisfying. Great controls, great visuals, great gameplay, great characters, great voice acting, great music, just a great game.
Overboard! (PlayStation)
I'm not big on pirates in general but this game is fantastic, probably as it focuses on the vehicular combat part of pirates and plays more like a mix between GTA and Twisted Metal on water with pirate ships and cannons instead of cars with machine guns, like a top-down pirate themed Blood Wake, simply brilliant.
Tomb Raider Anniversary (Xbox 360)
Imagine the Wii version with a lot more glitches but with slightly better controls and running at a higher screen resolution with a better framerate.
Virtua Racing Deluxe (32X)
Virtua Racing (Mega Drive)
Metal Gear Solid V Ground Zeroes (PlayStation 3)
Aladdin (Master System)
Longplayed it for YouTube.
Part 1: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EREcLNavbVY
Part 2: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8fYwVHPGSh8
part 3: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KKo_Tz0RMSg
part 4: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4sWWYRwkZhY
GoldenEye 007 (Wii)
Awful controls with Classic Pro Controller, unplayable with Wiimote and Nunchuk, overall generic modern FPS garbage with shitty modern Daniel Craig pretending to be James Bond.
Retro Force (PlayStation)
beat it on easy with 3126600 points, 12 januari 2017
Mercury (PlayStation Portable)
Armorines Project S.W.A.R.M. (Nintendo 64)
MTV Snowboarding (PlayStation)
Fade to Black (PlayStation)
Syphon Filter The Omega Strain (PlayStation 2)
Syphon Filter (PlayStation)
This game holds up so good even today, I love it. Tasing enemies til they burn and die is endlessly satisfying. Great controls, great visuals, great gameplay, great characters, great voice acting, great music, just a great game.
Overboard! (PlayStation)
I'm not big on pirates in general but this game is fantastic, probably as it focuses on the vehicular combat part of pirates and plays more like a mix between GTA and Twisted Metal on water with pirate ships and cannons instead of cars with machine guns, like a top-down pirate themed Blood Wake, simply brilliant.
Tomb Raider Anniversary (Xbox 360)
Imagine the Wii version with a lot more glitches but with slightly better controls and running at a higher screen resolution with a better framerate.
Virtua Racing Deluxe (32X)
Virtua Racing (Mega Drive)
Metal Gear Solid V Ground Zeroes (PlayStation 3)
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.
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